From Software 'n such

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Weak Boson
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Weak Boson »

I always thought it was kind of intentional that playing a pure INT build was harder in the earlier game - the tradeoff being OP projectile spam later on. That's the impression I got in DS1 anyway, but I never got round to doing a run like that. In DS3 it's easier to try casting since you can respec your character in the Cathedral but it seems less cool as a result. I agree that it sucks that infusion materials are staggered throughout the game.

But iirc state scaling doesn't effect the damage of weapons that much in the early game. It's much more about the upgrade level, so you really just need to invest the minimum stats to wield a straight sword and you're good to go. The points you invest early are better spent in health, stamina, maybe equip load. That's what you sacrifice to give your character spells - the tradeoff being better ranged options or support spells. For sure it's a bigger stat investment than going for a physical build but, as I say, I don't think that's entirely unintentional.

I think STR/ big weapon builds are pretty fun in pve since knocking down/ staggering enemies is a great tactic in both 1v1s and for crowd control. Don't forget to charge those R2's! But obviously health, stamina and equip load are much more important for a STR build than a DEX build. Fast weapons fair well in DS3 since you have pretty much infinite rolls. But you can still use fast weapons with any build, whereas if you've got no strength you won't have access to ultra/great weapons, so you may actually be at a disadvantage in some situations.

As for pvp, pure casters are nowhere near as strong as they were in DS2. The only tactic a sorcerer user has is to backpedal while spamming soulmass and punish the approaches while whittling the enemy down. I'm not a fan. Against anyone with passive health regen (most players) this is a lot less effective, and you really can't count on hitting someone with a soul spear unless they are using a slow weapon badly. Pyromancers fare a bit better thank's the the demon's scar, black flame and cbv. Outside of regen, faith builds have some high damage spells which are viable in pvp only because you can poise-cast them to trade with. But ultimately dark builds are the strongest in the whole game. You get access to quite a few spells, miracles and pyromancies and, since most weapons can be infused with dark, you have a huge arsenal to choose from, and the dark type versions tend to do the most damage.
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Blinge
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Blinge »

Weak Boson wrote:But obviously health, stamina and equip load are much more important for a STR build than a DEX build.
I guess but fast rolling around with a virtually naked build and a Greatsword is.. hella fun.
Still using those weapons without sacrificing speed.

You wanna F yourself in the A then do what I did at NG+2 and play most of it with a greatshield+lance trying to act like a Monster Hunter build.
The temptation to hit circle during bosses was sometimes too much!
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Obscura
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Obscura »

Sumez wrote:I played most of DS1 with weapons that didn't scale with any attribute, but just had good damage output on their own. Isn't that an option in DS3? Been a while.
It's an option, but non-scaling weapons do much less damage in DS3 than they did in DS1. In the later games in the series, they obviously tried to get people off of builds that just pick a weapon with good base damage and then slam everything into HP/Stamina.

@WeakBoson, I actually found that Int was really solid in DS1's early game aside from Sen's Funhouse (even there, it's not that bad as long as you get the binoculars so you can manually aim spells, but if you didn't take them as the starting gift and you chose to skip the depths, that area is painful as hell for casters).

I don't think I ever saw a knockdown even from fully charged R2's with Greathammers in DS3? I was expecting the DS2 *WHUMP* effect, and was sorely disappointed when I didn't have it. Just a bit of stagger, nothing like the DS2 pancake. My strat with STR or DEX builds in DS3's early game was always "spend all of my points on my damage stat until I hit 40, unless I absolutely need to put it in carry weight or the other stat to meet a weapon requirement" and it sure seemed to work better than what I've been doing with my caster build, spreading them between INT/ADP/VGR because there's no scaling for INT builds early...

One thing that occurs to me is that both DS1 and DS2 make super-early scaling irrelevant for everyone (DS1 makes you put your first bunch of points in END; DS2 makes you go ADP early), but DS3 really seems to want you to get damage scaling quickly.
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Blinge
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Blinge »

Obscura wrote:DS1 makes you put your first bunch of points in END
Again. you go on and on about it being the god stat.
I rushed the game with the starting bandit axe all the way to londo the other day on a goof and put about 3 points in END.
most of it was STR and VIT.
*shrug*

I doubt speedrunners pump end either.
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Obscura
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Obscura »

Why would you put that many points in VIT? Most of your health is in your Estus Flasks, you just need enough health to keep up with Estus upgrades and protect against the threat of one-shots. If your Estus is healing less than 2/3rds of your lifebar, you're just wasting points.
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Blinge
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Blinge »

I don't know, It was a semi-spontaneous goof, just showing off to a friend really.
I don't put that much thought into stats, you don't need to!

It was wayyyy more STR than VIT though.
It was about the one shots I suppose, or just wanting more of a buffer - I'm gonna get hit rather often, I hate the axes' moveset.
And none of the first 3 burger king weapons dropped!
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synthetic_nrg
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by synthetic_nrg »

my experience w the souls stuff is limited but i have enjoyed all of those, not an expert

but i played a good chunk of king's field(na) finally (would be playing but i lost/misplaced this one memory card again!!)
there was a small adjustment period, not just for the at least functional controls. once i understood the rhythm & variable pace of the game i grew to love it.
the game is bleak, the textures are all nice square and being rendered by the playstation. the texture are mostly simple, some of them have patterns that look like those dang rugs and the texture warping makes

this game an intense visual experience. the only humanoid faces are not on the humanoids.
i end up feeling like i'm in a bad dream, time begins to dilate when there are too many polygons.
most of those polygons in the game are the soft-looking friends that hurt a lot.

the music is is top shelf hypnotic darkness WITH some rompler slap bass!!! the sound design is top notch, everything i hear in this game sends shivers throughout. some of the sounds that play when you use items are especially great and send a different sort of shiver thru me. very good use of the spu here and is a treat for the ears throughout.

its been a very powerful experience, i'm not really looking into the details of the mechanics as it uses the more natural feeling "level up things as you use it" method. i prefer this because it just allows you to play and forge your own path through the challenges that await. beautiful game and i'm gonna have to accept my king's field memory loss and give it another dive again, i am not sure how far into the game i was but i remember coming across at least the outside of the cathedral at some point.

i like every game i've played by fromsoft but the king's field games appear to be the ones ive enjoyed the most. armored core is great too but i havent spent as much time in those ones as king's field.
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Sumez
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Sumez »

You guys are making me feel like such a loser for only having played through Dark Souls once, and not giving a shit about stats.
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Obscura
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Obscura »

Blinge wrote:I don't know, It was a semi-spontaneous goof, just showing off to a friend really.
I don't put that much thought into stats, you don't need to!

It was wayyyy more STR than VIT though.
It was about the one shots I suppose, or just wanting more of a buffer - I'm gonna get hit rather often, I hate the axes' moveset.
And none of the first 3 burger king weapons dropped!
Maybe you don't need to pay attention to where you're putting your points, but some of us do!

I just struggled to get through Deacons of the Deep of all things. Not enough END to cut through the crowd, not enough time to cast Pestilent Mercury. Magic builds in DS3 are hell.
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Weak Boson
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Weak Boson »

Sumez wrote:You guys are making me feel like such a loser for only having played through Dark Souls once, and not giving a shit about stats.
You are a loser for only playing Dark Souls once, but about the stats:

I remember when I first played I got the impression that the character customization was really obscure and the key to unlocking the game, but this would be to overstate its importance. The only thing that's relevant for a normal play through is that certain abilities are locked behind certain stats, and the game displays this clearly. You wanna wield that big club? level strength. You wanna cast that crystal spell? level INT. And if you wanna do both? Do both! I think this is the natural way to spend your points (as well as panic-banking points into hp of course). Getting sweaty over optimal builds is only really relevant when you have some self imposed constraints (honorable duel level cap, challenge runs, role playing etc)
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Sumez
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Sumez »

My approach exactly. To all of the games in fact. Their obscurity is the main appeal to me.
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Blinge
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Blinge »

I pay loose attention to where I put points eg,
oh I'm going STR so i'll pump that as my main damage stat.

Obscura you would've had a seizure if you saw my virgin souls run, demon souls.
I was like "hmm i don't know what any of this is so i guess i'll level everything evenly. I'd sure like to have some dexterity and luck! sounds useful! " :|

I remember having to restart.
I remember doing shitty damage all my second game as well before using the luck-scaling blueblood sword which even then was sub optimal.

Not that I'm trying to big myself up, that first clear was a *monumental* victory for me and hard won..
I also think DeS is the easiest game.
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Sumez
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Sumez »

I'm pretty sure you can make a sword with extra fire damage relatively early into Demon's Souls, which is strong enough to carry you though until the final boss.
I didn't even realise relying on damage scaling was a thing before NG+. When I first played that game I just pumped a bunch of points into STR expecting it to improve my melee damage in general, not realising that none of the weapons that I used gained any advantage from that, at all.
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Blinge »

Sumez wrote:I didn't even realise relying on damage scaling was a thing before NG+.
"relying" lol.
It's more like once you know how it works you don't want to touch anything that doesn't scale anymore.
Unless you're just messing around or think a weapon is cool.
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Ed Oscuro »

This is the secret of Souls, but also a source of frustration. In the RPG of yore, you were forced to expend many hours pushing stats up so you could progress. Souls allows many more people a chance to play by allowing them to expend some time working to increase their stats, but you can also usually trade pure skill. The problem is that it does lead to unavoidable balance issues and the perception that the game not not present all players with an even baseline. Heck, even Soul Level is a flawed metric for comparing players. Even if you generate ELO based on player performance, it could be gamed.
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Sumez
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Sumez »

Well, the Souls games do have stats that increase with every soul level no matter what stat you put them into. This is also why I don't think specific builds matter much outside of people who go specifically for geeking out about them. You can make do quite well without knowing a whole lot about the conseqence of the stats you invest in.
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Blinge
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Blinge »

To be fair - "oh if i put points there, my attack goes up. It's blue now. "
Should be pretty straight forward.

Not that it took until I played DS1 before I realised that or anything..
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Acid King
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Acid King »

I started an INT build in Dark Souls 3 after reading Obscura's post. I did runs through Dark Souls 1 and 2 as a magic user, but all 3 of my Dark Souls 3 runs have been STR and DEX builds. Maybe it's just familiarity with the game, but I haven't had much an issue so far. Gundyr went down easily to heavy soul arrow. When I got to Lothric I leveled STR to 12 in order to use the Deep Axe found at the beginning, but decided to go with the standard longsword instead because I like the moveset more, so I put a few levels into DEX to get it to 12. The rest I;ve been putting into INT and ATT.

Vordt went down pretty easy to Heavy Soul arrow. I buffed my sword with magic weapon and it only took me 5 or 6 tries before I took down Curse Rotted Greatwood. For Crystal Sage, I buffed my shield with Magic Shield and killed her with the vanilla longsword. I think the hardest thing so far is getting used to the casting speed (12 DEX) and dealing with the quicker moving enemies. I died a couple of times on the guy in the tower where you meet Siegfried until I got a good timing down for when it was safe to cast and still have time to roll away from his attacks. The damage on the sword isn't optimal, certainly not like my other builds, but as a supplemental attack it's been good. Again, maybe it's just familiarity with the game making things easier for me, but I haven't really run into a wall yet where I've been unable to do sufficient damage.
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Obscura
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Re: From Software 'n such

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How did you deal with Vordt from a distance? I tried that at first and he whooped my ass with how fast he could close the distance, and then I said "fuck it, I'll melee him because I know that's easy", and then I meleed him, and even with suboptimal damage it was easy.

Maybe I'm just more comfortable with melee in general, but the only places on that build where I found casting easier than just mixing it up with an infused weapon of some sort were against Abyss Watchers and the giants in the Cathedral of the Deep. Everywhere else, I just kept thinking "man, this would be so much better with a Dex build".
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Necronopticous »

My wife & I are streaming our Shadow Tower Abyss blind playthrough. We just started earlier tonight. http://www.twitch.tv/JumpLust
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Blinge
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Blinge »

Select is pause in Silent hill 1 and 3 I believe.
I'm mad youze didn't get flattened by that trap at the very beginning.. i did. :)

holy shit that first NPC lmao
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Acid King
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Re: From Software 'n such

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Obscura wrote:How did you deal with Vordt from a distance? I tried that at first and he whooped my ass with how fast he could close the distance, and then I said "fuck it, I'll melee him because I know that's easy", and then I meleed him, and even with suboptimal damage it was easy.

Maybe I'm just more comfortable with melee in general, but the only places on that build where I found casting easier than just mixing it up with an infused weapon of some sort were against Abyss Watchers and the giants in the Cathedral of the Deep. Everywhere else, I just kept thinking "man, this would be so much better with a Dex build".
I initially tried staying away from him, but found his closing moves too quick for the wind-up on the spell, so I moved to close-medium range to bait him into attacking to look for windows where I had enough time to cast. When did a melee sequence, I tried to move to his side/rear him so he was moving away from me when I began casting. His pause at the end of the roll attack and the ice breath leave a good deal to room to fire shots off.

It's an adjustment from a melee character, for sure. I'm going through Cathedral of the Deep now and running into problems with some of the mobs, but I haven't really messed around with the Flashsword or Soul Greatsword so much yet, which I think might help. I think that might be the issue going forward, like what happened to my INT build in 2, which showed it's limitations when I got down to the Royal Rat Vanguard. I also never used weapon skills much in my previous plays and actually having to manage FP and the two Estus flasks is an adjustment.
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Obscura
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Obscura »

The thing about INT builds in 2 that's cool and doesn't work the same way in 3 is that you can scale any kind of damage other than Divine to INT somehow, so you can mix-and-match weapons in both hands, power stance, and still have room for catalysts in both hands (you can cast from the left hand in 2, and both Pyromancy and Magic scale off of INT). The result is that INT builds are crazy swiss-army knives that always can do the right kind of damage for the situation. Dark 3 doesn't yet you scale physical, lightning, or dark off of INT, and it makes it hard to scale fire off of INT (it's only available very late in the game). It also doesn't have power-stancing for mix-and-match damage types, and I don't believe you can cast from the left hand either (not that it would matter so much in 3, there's no reason to have multiple catalysts ready to go in that game since Pyro requires both INT and FTH, limiting it to really dedicated builds).
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Blinge
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Re: From Software 'n such

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Necronopticous wrote:My wife & I are streaming our Shadow Tower Abyss blind playthrough. We just started earlier tonight. http://www.twitch.tv/JumpLust
I've been coming back to this video in spare moments

That's nuts how hitting enemies with your fist hurts you! I never noticed that.
Then again i didnt do much fisting.

I mean, I assume that's what it is.. rather than acid blood :mrgreen:
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Necronopticous
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Necronopticous »

I've been coming back to this video in spare moments

That's nuts how hitting enemies with your fist hurts you! I never noticed that.
Then again i didnt do much fisting.

I mean, I assume that's what it is.. rather than acid blood
Nice! We've played a few sessions now so there should be plenty of past broadcast content if you're into that sort of thing.

I'm still not sure on the seeming "recoil" damage yet...I still feel like that's happening sometimes even with weapons but it's gotten almost negligable now since we have HP recovery and lots of HP. Maybe it is just wish fists? I never made complete sense of it.

We are really enjoying Abyss so far. I'm sure we'll be playing much more over the coming days/weeks. I must say, though, currently it is not looking like this is going to eclipse the experience of the original Shadow Tower for us. That game had a crazy huge impression on us which has not yet quite been matched in the sequel. Looking forward to doing a full writeup of both games at some point.
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Necronopticous
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Necronopticous »

Well, it seems as though we are in the home stretch of Shadow Tower Abyss now. Last night we completed the Red Sand Area. Auriel gave us a cosplay sword and I blew her away with a twelve gauge shotgun. I'm looking forward to finishing this thing off and finalizing my thoughts.
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Obscura
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Obscura »

IIRC, you've got more to go than you think; Red Sand Area is just about half-way through the game.
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Necronopticous
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Necronopticous »

Intriguing! I was thinking we were closer to the end since there are only 2 unknown areas left in our data book. Also, our equipment load out is ridiculous at this point and we just kinda have that end of a King's Field game feel.
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Blinge
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Re: From Software 'n such

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Nah you're pretty much at the end i think.
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Re: From Software 'n such

Post by Ed Oscuro »

75% done IIRC :lol:
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