NG+ (necessary) improvements

I wanted to start a new topic about NG+ and how it needs to be improved.

Currently NG+ isn't a very good "mode", in my opinion. There's nothing new, nothing different, nothing missing in it when compared to regular NG. It's just a few arbitrary changes that make the game more "difficult" by some strange logic. A few numeric values that a programmer can alter in a day or two. But this is not a thread for complaining about how bad the NG+ system is, no, this is a thread for discussing possible improvements.

A pretty important change in my opinion would be not focusing so much on arbitrary difficulty changes like health and attack strength, but find better, more natural and elegant ways to change difficulty. I'm not going to discuss how NG+ affects lore or anything like that, so here's one crucial thing I'd love to see in Dark Souls 2.

-Better AI. Not much to elaborate on here, I just think that the most natural way to make enemies more intimidating would be to make them smarter. Regular hollows could time their blocks better, parry, or even dodge sometimes. Their senses could be enhanced so that they see you from farther away. They could be strategic and prepare an ambush if they notice you before you notice them. Especially the last example, I think, could add tons of replayability to the already addicting Souls formula.

So post your own suggestions here, discuss ways of improving experience, and inform me if this thread is an unnecessary duplicate.

I think the AI should be smarter all together, i'm talking about right when you start up the game on just NG.

Perhaps make NG+ more of a CO-OP deal, say you want to summon a friend to fight Lord Gywn, well why not put in two lord Gywns if you summon a friend? that's my little suggestion

I wrote a thread about this awhile back, I still think it's a good idea.

I wouldn't do it by making the AI better. The AI should be better in general, NG+ should focus on enemy placement and amount, and clever things in bossfights to make them more difficult.

My thread on it.

^I remember discussing everything in Buggy's thread before, and everything's pretty much nailed.

Can't remember all, but a list of what I'd like (inspired by previous discussion with buggy and others):

Use features of bosses to create interesting added difficulty to fights (obviously bosses would need to be designed around this, and frankly this would suit demons souls bosses much better than dark as they have more 'unique quirks' as i like to call them)

Random spawning of enemies in most places, in specific places of conflict, like anor londo archers, bonewheel pit etc make it more difficult but in similar vein, some BP.

Black knights randomly spawn ANYWHERE in game world after bonfire usage

Added/moved traps + keys, master key dropped on NG+

Excess bonfires disappear, eg mid level bonfires anor and dukes

NPC invasions if human and online traffic below certain level

So the ng+ differences in dks are: difficulty and soul increase, can buy gwyns armor, can use gwyns soul for sword/sunlight spear (unless you were gifted his soul in ng), gravelorded world spawns black phantoms. Is that more or less all?

A few dks examples and ideas:

They should have shuffled the mimics and normal chests at least, but without changing the items in the chests.

I kind of like the fixed enemy positions, but what if in each ng+ 1 or 2 parish hollows are swapped with balder knights, and perhaps 1 of the original balder knights are swapped with a berenike knight. Different enemies should change the gamplay even though their placement is the same as the last ng cycle. And if they go with multiple paths you might also choose a different path through an area since the enemies have changed along it.

To also have some kind of reward that doesnt affect the gameplay, what if you could for example learn a new gesture from domhnall in each ng+(+)?

Shuffling the mimics is brilliant. Swapping enemies and changing up placement a bit is also very cool. Fewer bonfires/checkpoints or different placements? Also cool.

My biggest problem with addressing the NG+ "problem" is that the majority of proposed "solutions" severely nerf NG. If the AI gets smarter in NG+, then NG is not everything it could be. If a boss uses an attack in NG+ that it doesn't use in NG, then NG is not everything it could be. And frankly, that's crap. I want the most extreme game possible starting from the moment the disc goes into the console.

NG+ is easy because it's predictable, not the other way around. To increase replayability of NG+, surprise the player.

Wow, some pretty great suggestions here. I have to process all of this and then maybe I can add something to this discussion

Randomised enemy placements (within logical limits)

Remove unique items already gained and replace with freebie souls.

Turn off invasion safe zones.

Change up some of the elemental weaknesses for enemies that do not follow logical reason. (So tree enemies are always weak to fire, yet black knight warriors might gain resistance to lightning and have lightning weapons and so require more care and relearning.)

For bosses, I don't think bosses should change at all, just maybe add dopplegangers to boss fights, or start them in later boss stages (like O/S), or add normal mobs spawning in the boss fight. It would make fights severely harder, without inherently changing the boss.

If anyone raided Ulduar in WoW they should know the way Blizzard did "Hardcore Mode" back then - If you wanted an additional challenge, you could kill the boss in a specific manner which made the fights alot more challenging, with the reward of more loot.
NG+ or not, I think this should be added in DkSII as well, not neccesarily for better loot, but for example titanite, souls or humanity. If that currency exists in DkSII.

NG could also be made as a prerunner to NG+, meaning that people can remain to coop and PvP in NG, but after killing the final boss a f.ex portal would open up, warping you to NG+. NG+ should offer new areas or tweaks to the areas in NG, like catapults destroying a wall opening up a much harder route to finish the level or something in a similar vein.

But on the other hand, as mentioned above, it's hard to come up with a waterproof idea on how to improve NG+ without ruining NG.

Off shoot of the World Tendency idea:

Two endings like the other Souls games.
Choosing one ending makes the world one tendency. Choosing the other ending changes it to the other tendency.

So then you'd have three playthroughs of exhiliration. First is "normal" then each world tendency would have possibly a few unique phantom invasions and "shortcuts."

I wouldn't recommend the wholesale white vs. black tendency idea since the "white ending" would mean an entire game on easy mode but perhaps the white tendency is reflected in more phantoms etc. from the "good lore" so for example Leeroy would be available in the white tendency while Kirk might be the black tendency. Each tendency could have a few minor mob changes as well (location, amount, any of the great ideas above actually)


EDIT: Forgot to mention that neither tendency created by an ending would negate or close out anything from the first run, each would only add something different

back in the time of Ice wind dale you could start a new game plus anytime and all the enemies would scale thats all you need for a NG+ mode

NG+ was massively dissapointing. I'd say adding extra enemies and changing the spawn spots on each playthrough would help.

You could have black knights in surprising locations so you can't just run through knowing exact enemy layouts. Break illusiary wall in gardens for bonfire and a black knight jumps out and smashes your face for example.

The example of WOW and the heroic modes in it is very apt. Each boss fight should have a new slant in NG+ and ++.

Example:

Taurus Demon Boss:
NG: As now
NG+: Archers behind him shooting arrows at you
NG++: Archers now throw fire bombs that leave fires on the bridge
NG+++: Damage ramps up depending on boss HP

Capra Demon:
NG: As now
NG+: Dogs are the fire breathing ones from blighttown
NG++: Demon more agressive, doesn't stop or wait around.
NG+++: Add a pillar or statue in front of stairs to stop you going up them.

Basically they could do loads to make bosses harder without just upping damage and life. If they didn't want to program extra mechanics the easiest would be to chuck in some extra enemies or removing a weak attack pattern or upping poise or agressiveness of the boss. All these behaviors are already programmed so it's just a matter of sticking them in the boss room or changing some numbers around.

Another good one is making the boss get stronger as time goes on until it one shots you or the opposite where you have to survive a certain amount of time as boss takes severely reduced damage and then as time goes on it takes more.

There are sooo many ways to make boss fights very different in the new playthroughs!

Also new content! In DkS ash lake and the hollow were 2 zones that could have been left for NG+ and NG++ and had bosses added. Anyone who didn't look these zones up on the internet would have missed them anyway so why not make them NG+ and NG++ only? You could argue that NG should have all content but surely lots of content that gets missed anyway could be made NG+ only and give a reason to play another playthrough.

Items: More unique NG+ items. Nothing game breaking PVP wise but some neat PVE items (ring to increase souls earned or damage against demons etc) could be good.