i haven't played vanilla in a very long time but everytime i play through sotfs there are so many areas which exist just to piss me off, gank fests of loads of high agro range enemies which leaves me just clearing the area out permanently to get through it properly.
Thing is in my vague memory of vanilla I don't remember any such area causing me much aggravation. I actually remember the game being pretty easy.
Ended up buying vanilla just so I can see if sotfs is actually just designed by a crazy person because the game just feels like a slog to play between eathen peak and iron keep. I'm struggling to think what part of sotfs is actually an improvement.
Gonna repeat what everyone says but I much preferred the enemy placements and balance of Vanilla over SotFS. That, and I hate the inclusion of unfinished or cut content in the game like the clearly half baked falconer enemies and their unfinished animations. DS2 was already leaning into the “whoaa it’s sooooo tough you’re gonna die sooooo many times” reputation in vanilla and they cranked that shit up in SotFS to irritating levels.
The performance improvements and lighting in SotFS are substantial and if I could apply them to vanilla that’d be the best of both worlds.