History YMMV / DungeonSiege

* ContestedSequel: ''DS III'' is pretty much considered a 'in name only' entry, with a change of developers, more console-oriented controls, and the removal of character creation in favor of premade player characters.
** ''DS II'' is contested to a lesser extent, specifically for more hardcore fans of the first game. The reduction of the max party cap from 8 to 6, and restricting getting more than 4 at a time based on subsequent playthroughs, the introduction of a [[ZipMode fast travel system]] instead of a single seamlessly loading unbroken world, the enemies respawning instead of staying permanently killed, and even the change to the way party aggro works (requiring setting the entire party to specific modes to affect their behavior instead of individually setting their aggression, plus ticking two options that are tucked away to make them keep attacking enemies without holding the right mouse button and attack back enemies back automatically after taking damage), are all things that hardcore fans of the first game say makes the second one inferior.

** The final level of ''DS II'', Zaramoth's Horns. A MarathonLevel with zero puzzles, and the only gimmicks being the occasional invincibility-giving Azunite Obelisk and OneHitKill Eye of Zaramoth. It's filled with {{Elite Mook}}s and ''two'' boss fights, culminating in one final ascent filled to the brim with even ''more'' minibosses, with the last checkpoint located ''before'' the room of the first boss. The good news is that there's a lot of good loot and experience to be had. The bad news is all that grinding can get rather boring after a while. It's a perfectly serviceable finale, but its level design pales in comparison to the Agallan Trial beforehand. By the time you reach the [[ItsAllUpstairsFromHere Final Ascent]], you'll just be [[EndingFatigue asking for the game to end already]] because the dungeon has been going on for nearly 2 hours with little more than DemonicSpiders to spice things up.
** The final dungeon of ''Broken World'' has you traverse a seemingly endless series of identical rooms until you reach the final boss.

* FandomRivalry: With ''Videogame/{{Fallout}}'' fan, especially ''Videogame/FalloutNewVegas'', due to Obsidian Entertainment involvement. Many fans of the latter game express disbelief on how the developer of ''[[MagnumOpus New Vegas]]'' can ruin another series.
* FanonDiscontinuity: Many old-school Dungeon Siege fans had long regarded DS III as non-canon due to the various lore change or lore advancements that were met with much derision. Don't even get us started with the game mechanic changes.

** Leveling up the Luck stat in ''Throne of Agony''. Not only does Luck increase the frequency of a CriticalHit happening for both regular attacks and skills, it also increases the frequency of Gold drops and higher quality equipment, [[SerialEscalation which can include items that further increase Luck passively]]. Focusing on leveling up Luck early on serves as a devastating DiscOneNuke, since you'll get access to higher tier merchandise earlier the more Gold you have.

** There are enemies that [[MadeOfExplodium explode upon death]]. These include Volatile Boggrots (the first enemies you encounter, in fact) and Morden-Sin Ravagers, although the latter at least have a telegraph for when they're about to explode. They're not very dangerous on their own, however, they're usually paired with much stronger enemies, who'd be more than glad to finish you off after taking a good explosive beating. The Familiars ''all'' exmploy a much more dangerous version of this, as not only do their explosions deal far more damage and are far larger too, they [[DeathActivatedSuperPower come back from the dead afterwards]].

* OutOfFocus: The main protagonists in ''Throne of Agony''. Past the first half of the game, their personal motivations to going on their quest are cast aside as the story shifts into a history lesson on the [[PhysicalGods Agallans]] and how Malith was the catalyst behind the Betrayal.

** In ''DS II'', [[GameBreakingBug thanks to a bug]] introduced with the ''Broken World'' expansion, the Undead Azunite Archer Hero {{Elite Mook}} is '''level 45''', 5 levels higher than even the final boss! Being an enemy that has a very large range of attack, and takes ScratchDamage due to how levels work, fighting these things ''will'' result in death unless you're grossly overlevelled, which you'll never be unless you've gone a couple of hours into NewGamePlus (if you're playing on vanilla ''DS II''), or gone through the ''Broken World'' campaign once (if you're playing with the expansion on). The worst part is that due to the semi-random nature of enemy spawns, sometimes these particular ones may spawn in place of the other normal-level Undead Azunite {{Elite Mook}}s when you need to collect the Champion Masks required to access the Azunite Burial Grounds, meaning you may be forced to kill at least one of these in order to advance the story. Luckily you can just collect the masks without fighting them, so unless you plan on getting the Bestiary entry for these guys, there's no need to engage them.

** In ''DS II'', for whatever reason one of the Undead Azunite {{Elite Mook}}s, the Undead Azunite Archer Hero, is '''level 45''', 5 levels higher than even the final boss! Being an enemy that has a very large range of attack, and takes ScratchDamage due to how levels work, fighting these things ''will'' result in death unless you're grossly overlevelled, which you'll never be unless you've gone a couple of hours into NewGamePlus (if you're playing on vanilla ''DS II''), or gone through the ''Broken World'' campaign once (if you're playing with the expansion on). The worst part is that due to the semi-random nature of enemy spawns, sometimes these particular ones may spawn in place of the other normal-level Undead Azunite {{Elite Mook}}s when you need to collect the Champion Masks required to access the Azunite Burial Grounds, meaning you may be forced to kill at least one of these in order to advance the story. Luckily you can just collect the masks without fighting them, so unless you plan on getting them for the Bestiary, there's no need to engage them.

** One universally despised change ''DS II'' made was reducing the maximum amount of party members from 8 to 6, and locking getting more than 4 party slots to [[NewGamePlus higher difficulties]], one slot per new difficulty, something aggravated by ''Broken World'''s inclusion of an entire separate campaign before you can access an Inn again.

* PortingDisaster: Despite being a simultaneous release, the PC version of [=DS3=] has serious interface problems, specifically requiring auto-lockon instead of the mystical, sophisticated computer-only peripheral known as a ''mouse'' in combat. There has since been a patch that added keybinding and the capacity to use a WASD layout. However, the targeting system has not been patched.

* FanonDiscontinuity: Many old-school Dungeon Siege fans had long regarded DS III as non-cannon due to the various lore change or lore advancements that was met with much derision (Don't even get us started with the game mechanic changes).

* ScrappyMechanic: Elevators. In the first game, they automatically trigger when boarded, and the game ''doesn't'' wait for all party members and summons to reach it before moving, which gets especially problematic the larger your party gets, as they're both not large enough to accommodate up to 8 characters in a tight space, there's also no good formation that'll keep them from leaking out. The second game at least has the courtesy of fixing the first two issues, but due to ArtificialStupidity involving characters using summons and them seeing space they could be standing on as being occupied by something else, there'll still be times when at least one party member gets left behind and you have to keep trying to get them into the elevator ''without them stepping out and activating the damn thing and getting left behind as a result''.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: ''DS III'' is this in ''spades''. Many of the changes were deemed as not necessary and in any case, it actually ''harmed'' the Dungeon Siege experience more than it enhanced it.

** The final level of ''DS II'', Zaramoth's Horns. A visually dull MarathonLevel with zero puzzles, and the only gimmicks being the occasional invincibility-giving Azunite Obelisk and OneHitKill Eye of Zaramoth. It's filled with {{Elite Mook}}s and ''two'' boss fights, culminating in one final ascent filled to the brim with even ''more'' minibosses, with the last checkpoint located ''before'' the room of the first boss. The good news is that there's a lot of good loot and experience to be had. The bad news is all that grinding can get rather boring after a while.

** The final level of ''DS II'', Zaramoth's Horns. A visually dull MarathonLevel with zero puzzles, and the only gimmicks being the occasional invincibility-giving Azunite Obelisk and OneHitKill Eye of Zaramoth. It's filled with {{EliteMook}}s and ''two'' boss fights, culminating in one final ascent filled to the brim with even ''more'' minibosses, with the last checkpoint located ''before'' the room of the first boss. The good news is that there's a lot of good loot and experience to be had. The bad news is all that grinding can get rather boring after a while.

** In ''DS II'', for whatever reason one of the Undead Azunite {{Elite Mook}}s, more specifically the Archer one, is '''level 45''', higher than even the final boss! Being an enemy that has a very large range of attack, and takes ScratchDamage due to how levels work, fighting these things ''will'' result in death unless you're grossly overlevelled, which you'll never be unless you've gone a couple of hours into NewGamePlus (if you're playing on vanilla ''DS II''), or gone through the ''Broken World'' campaign once (if you're playing with the expansion on). The worst part is that sometimes these particular ones may spawn in place of other Undead Azunite {{Elite Mook}}s in one of the sidequests in the Azunite Burial Grounds, meaning you may be forced to kill at least one of these in order to complete it. Luckily you can just rush past these if you're not aiming for OneHundredPercentCompletion, so there's at least that.
** There's an enemy in the final dungeon of ''[=DS2=]'' that casts a curse on the whole party which deals a lot of damage over time and can easily cause a TotalPartyKill. This basically [[CharacterSelectForcing forces]] you to bring a nature mage with the curse immunity buff.

** The final level of ''DS II'', Zaramoth's Horns. The good news is that there's a lot of good loot and experience to be had. The bad news is all that grinding can get rather boring after a while.

* FanonDiscontinuity: Many oldschool Dungeon Siege fans had long regarded DS III as non-cannon due to the various lore change or lore advancements that was met with much derision (Don't even get us started with the game mechanic changes).

* GoddamnedBats: [[MadeOfExplodium Volatile enemies]] in ''Broken World''. They always explode after you kill them, in an attempt at TakingYouWithMe. They're not very dangerous on their own, however, they're usually paired with much stronger enemies, who'd be more than glad to finish you off after taking a good explosive beating.

** In DSIII, when you enter the Gunderic Mansion, you can hear the ghost of Alice Gunderic speaking in a high-pitched voice that echoes throughout the mansion whenever she speaks.

** Valdis in the second game is ''particularly'' fond of comboing your party with his sword slashes for massive area damage. If it doesn't outright kill your party members, it'll at least put them deep in the unconscious state.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: DS III is this in ''spades''. Many of the changes were deemed as not necessary and in any case, it actually ''harmed'' the Dungeon Siege experience more than it enhanced it.

* FandomBerserkButton: Never ''ever'' mention [[Creator/ObsidianEntertainment Obsidian Entertainment]] to a Dungeon Siege fan, especially if it is an oldschool one. Given that Obsidian Games was in charge with the disastrous handling and development of DS III, it is understandable why Obsidian Games was given the black mark in the DS fanbase. Even a decade after DS III's release, there are some fans who still do not trust Obsidian Entertainment on ''anything'' due to how much Obsidian was involved (Whether unintentionally or not) in killing the franchise.

* FandomBerserkButton: Never ''ever'' mention [[Creator/ObsidianEntertainment Obsidian Games]] to a Dungeon Siege fan, especially if it is an oldschool one. Given that Obsidian Games was in charge with the disastrous handling and development of DS III, it is understandable why Obsidian Games was given the black mark in the DS fanbase. Even a decade after DS III's release, there are some fans who still do not trust Obsidian Games on ''anything'' due to how much Obsidian was involved (Whether unintentionally or not) in killing the franchise.

* FranchiseKiller: ''DS III'' was considered by many fans, as the final nail in the coffin for the Dungeon Siege franchise and was the start of many Dungeon Siege fans' general distaste to Obsidian Entertainment. There were several reasons why every fan ''hated'' it. These are:
** ''Removal of of character creation'': Even though Dungeon Siege's character creation was comparatively limited, it still offered players a chance to role-play. The removal of such a tool for pre-made characters was deemed unnecessary and pointless for many fans, and made the game dull.
** ''Reduction of party members'': The main selling point for Dungeon Siege which removed it from its contemporaries like Diablo, was its ''massive'' roster of party members that one can edit and micromanage. Whilst there was a reduction from eight to six in Dungeon Siege II, it was still enough to make the game truly unique and there was still a wide variation of potential members to recruit, each with their own unique dialogue, skills and storyline. So to see it reduced ''even further'' to ''four unchangeable pre-made characters'' was a blow for many players.
** ''Switch to more console support'': This change was filled with bewilderment for Dungeon Siege fans as Dungeon Siege simply cannot be replicated on console. Many fans suspected that the reduction of party members had to do with DS III's jump to the consoles, which made no sense given that the franchise never delved into consoles outside of spin-offs on portable devices.
** ''Change to the lore'': Many fans were...''unimpressed'' with the way the plot of Dungeon Siege III went, with many viewing the plot as [[Main/FanonDiscontinuity non-cannon.]]
** ''Change in gameplay'': This was a major one as Obsidian Entertainment - due to jumping to console - decided it was a great idea to change the gameplay of Dungeon Siege from a slow, methodical, almost tactical fights to a more fast-paced [=MOBA=]-esque action sequence. Fans utterly ''loathed'' the change as it bared too much resemblance to Dungeon Siege's main competitor, Diablo alongside other [=MOBA=] games.