From Software 'n such

[Steamflogger Boss]

I no hit Manus. Kinda wish I recorded it but oh well.

[Necronopticous]

Nice work! Here's my SL1 fight from last night where I committed to a formal apology before delivering the final blow:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/809794084

[Blinge]

Aahaha. you faackin show offs!

[Steamflogger Boss]

Aahaha. you faackin show offs!

If you have the time, it's been awesome to just hang out and chat in Necron and Colour_Thief streams.

[drauch]

Hey y'all, quick Shadow Tower question.

So I'm in the Illusion area right now after going through the Water World. I'm just thinking I inadvertently skipped most of Fire world... My question is, is there a way to get back to there? I'm going back and looking and not sure I can get there at this point, which seems absolutely nuts if that's the case since you drop down in Impure Pool. Please tell me I'm wrong.

[Necronopticous]

You can go back.

[drauch]

Phew. Awesome, thank you. I would have assumed that'd be the case, but after fruitless searching quite a bit and my experience with Echo Night 2 and missing a particular item that changes the ending, I was starting to get a bit worried.

[Blinge]

Oh shit I forgot to mention. I've been playing Kuon (PS2). Cool aesthetic - sengoku era(i think). you could say...Sekiresque. Huge Japanese mansion slaughtered and turned into zambies and ghosts.

So far it's very by-the-book: golden age of survival horror gameplay. fixed camera, limited attack options.
Spell cards to attack eg, one that launches a fireball, another that summons a little spider to fight for you.

I'm having to make the choice between taking a hit to run away, or spending fireball cards to kill a monster and leaving me woefully unequipped.

Very dark, easy to get lost. I feel like it won't pose much of a challenge to survival horror veterans but would wreck anyone who hasn't had a primer in the genre.

[Stevens]

30 minutes of Bloodborne last big night.

Downed Horseboi and the hunter pair using 20 blood vials. NG +4.

Not bad after a few months off.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Oh shit I forgot to mention. I've been playing Kuon (PS2). Cool aesthetic - sengoku era(i think). you could say...Sekiresque. Huge Japanese mansion slaughtered and turned into zambies and ghosts.

So far it's very by-the-book: golden age of survival horror gameplay. fixed camera, limited attack options.
Spell cards to attack eg, one that launches a fireball, another that summons a little spider to fight for you.

I'm having to make the choice between taking a hit to run away, or spending fireball cards to kill a monster and leaving me woefully unequipped.

Very dark, easy to get lost. I feel like it won't pose much of a challenge to survival horror veterans but would wreck anyone who hasn't had a primer in the genre.

I really enjoyed it, despite it technically not being great.

I finished this DS1 run. Poor Gwyn, total joke that died to like 3 or 4 spell casts.

[Mortificator]

Kuon's very atmospheric, but the gameplay is unfortunately dull and repetitive. That's exacerbated by putting in both a "yin" and "yang" phase. They were obviously inspired by Resident Evil here (as it was by Alone in the Dark's two characters), but the scenarios tread too much of the same ground. They don't fit together narratively either. One should have been cut and the extra dev time used to polish the other.

I would say to just play though yang, except you need to clear both to unlock the Kuon scenario that's the resolution of the story. This one is a different experience, and Abe's a badass who bodies monsters left and right. The downside of that is that the tense survival vibe is gone and you're basically playing ultimate mode Onimusha.

Kuon's quite a bit earlier than sengoku BTW, ~950.

[Marc]

Sekiro didn’t just make me rage-quit, it made me rage-quit and erase my save data. Quite a feat.

I’m still not convinced TBH. Playing through the first flashback area with the spear dude miniboss. It’s presented as this big open area, but in actual fact is divided into a bunch of smaller ones that funnel you through bottlenecks. Attempting to perch on a roof and scope things out seems to result in you being spotted every time and having to wait out their trigger period, once alerted it seems you can approach from a completely different direction and still be seen. Camera is as fuck-awful as expected. Got to spear dude a few times, never managed to take out the archers without alerting him and this losing the potential for a free deathblow. Oh, and a few previously invisible archers decided to pop up partway through one attempt. I dunno, It feels like an uncomfortable mix of DMC, Souls and Tenchu, without really gelling. What I think should be deadly and efficient, is in my hands at least, more of a Benny Hill sketch – blunder into area, get chased to nearest grapple point, wait out their active period, rinse & repeat….

Mind you, I’m probably only saying that because I’m still sore at it. I’ll give it one last whirl later….

[Blinge]

Jesus christ

Yeah it's not really a full stealth game. Some areas are incredibly finicky to try and stealth, i think the intended way is for you to take out maybe 1-2 guys then end up fighting or running.

Shinobi Hunter's arena.. you can just sprint around and mash the archers down once spotted. The regular sword dudes can be kited up the steps. None of that is really a problem, the boss is.

I'd suggest crouching in the flowers, you're all but invisible, get the deathblow on him first.. and iirc the archer near the tower can be stealth-killed easily.

But yeah with all that done you'll Probs just die to spear man again and again. Maybe it's not even worth. just get the flame attachment from beforehand and leave the memory until you have a damage upgrade. Also get Mikiri Counter unlocked.
Deleting one's save seems a bit extreme.

[Marc]

Jesus christ

I know, it's been ages since I've done that

I unlocked the flame thing and Mikri counter, spear man wasn't too bad, but every time I got a rhythm going some little arsehole seemed to pop up and start shooting at me, even when I was convinced I'd cleared the area out.

I just don't think I'm into the way the titles seemed to have inched toward replying on timing and reactions in comparison to the first two Souls. Even 3 seemed set up to discourage heavy turtle-like builds.

Might just go back and play those, try out a proper magic build. After I've tried again with Sekiro of course

[Blinge]

Yeah I believe poise-tanking was severely nerfed from 2 onwards?

[Sumez]

I've seen some DS3 poise builds mindlessly tank through stuff that makes me feel all silly for relying on a dex/end build and actually bothering to learn the patterns of boss fights, so even if it was nerfed it's definitely not to the point where it makes it ineffecient.

[Blinge]

oh shit. source?

edited to remove dead meme

[Marc]

I've seen some DS3 poise builds mindlessly tank through stuff that makes me feel all silly for relying on a dex/end build and actually bothering to learn the patterns of boss fights, so even if it was nerfed it's definitely not to the point where it makes it ineffecient.

Maybe quite a specific build? All I remember is going for my usual, which usually buys my inept ass enough time to gain at least a little familiarity with boss patterns, but getting my poise broken when trying to block more than a couple hits.

Maybe time to try again, now that it runs at a decent frame rate on PS Pro.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Might just go back and play those, try out a proper magic build. After I've tried again with Sekiro of course

Magic is super busto in DS1 too. Just kinda jizzed all over most bosses. Of course, it's really important for bosses to get the high damage spells and have your damage boosted.

My first DS3 playthrough was turtle ish iirc. I'd have to load it up to check specifics. That was the playthrough where I never beat Midir.

[Sumez]

oh shit. source?

Not min-maxing or anything, just random people's blind playtroughs, wading right through shit that gave me a lot of trouble, hah.

Here's an example random video I found from an old thread on the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuvQ_gFq_2o

[Blinge]

So his poise lets him hyper armour a couple of attacks. And.. it's pretty mindblowing that he can roll that fast in full havels

However I don't really see that much scrubby plays. He's blocking well, got a build designed to block hits with the massive greatshield and stamina. Stamina management's on point.

The princes themselves aren't the hardest boss / combat challenge but i guess they're in the upper half.

Poise is so busted in DS1 you can actually chug estus while being hit.
My example is my friend doing: hit, get hit (knockdown or not), chug, hit. Rinse repeat.
She beat Artorias that way in front of me. She dodged like, one attack. No blocking.

[Sumez]

Princes to me was probably top 2 or 3, but of course with Souls games it's always really individual depending on your play style.
Being able to just shield through long-ass combos combos like that and still remain standing to deliver a bunch of counter-blows and have stamina to spare definitely changes the fight a lot from how I perceived it.

My example is my friend doing: hit, get hit (knockdown or not), chug, hit. Rinse repeat.
She beat Artorias that way in front of me. She dodged like, one attack. No blocking.

Okay, that's pretty absurd.

[Blinge]

Sure, but like.. where's the long ass combo?

Tbh the only boss I blocked against was pontiff because he actually has long combos.
The rest was light(ish) armour and roly-polies all day with a fat sword.

So I guess there'd be merit in re-playing the game as a blockmun

edit: re the princes: I actually love that fight it's hella fun

[Sumez]

Hell yeah, princes was definitely a highlight for me. Classic Souls fight.

[drauch]

I took a quick Shadow Tower break and picked up Bloodborne after like a year. Slow and steady wins the race. Finally beat the stinker. Somehow managed to get infinitely better with my break and almost beat everyone in one try, Micolash and onward. Logarius, Gerhman, and Moon Presence took 2 tries, which was kind of surprising to me since I died to Micolash twice last year and raged out from having to do the maze again. Guess that just shows that anger doesn't help anything! *This message brought to you by CELEXA*

Feel like a dipshit though and didn't read up on the DLC, so that's for next game I guess since there's no going back now. OH WELL.

[BIL]

kind of surprising to me since I died to Micolash twice last year and raged out from having to do the maze again. Guess that just shows that anger doesn't help anything! *This message brought to you by CELEXA*

Always remember, the temperature PCB components are soldered at will vaporise even the hardest rage boner. Humans need technique and craft to compete with these diabolical machines and their white-hot rods!

Spoiler

^^^ Actual photograph of Edmond Dantes' final run at Jaquio

[Blinge]

Feel like a dipshit though and didn't read up on the DLC, so that's for next game I guess since there's no going back now. OH WELL.

The true Bloodborne starts here.
Edit: no really, the DLC's gonna throw stuff at you that'll make you wish for Micolash

[Blinge]

Gonna answer Sumey here.

Even in your Catacombs/Tomb of Giants example, the biggest "consequence" is psychological. Even if you do attribute a lot of value to your soul count

Not really. You die after Pinwheel without finding that bonfire in the dark and you have a looong descent back there, past the bonewheels again! That's a real gameplay consequence.

I'd already finished Demon's Souls and most of Dark Souls before I realised that the best way to relieve stress and improve your performance in these games is to stop caring about your accumulated souls at all. The "corpse retrieval" is a really cool mechanic that affects how most people perceive the games as they start out, but like I said, it's really a psychological effect more than anything else.

Yeah many people never see past that. I've got a veteran buddy who'll get upset at the loss of 100 fucking souls. Altho tbh he's not a good barometer for anything

It's a series that is amazingly good at pretending that it is way more unfair than it actually is, and it does so intentionally.

What you forget here is that for many new players (whose opinions go a long way towards public discourse on the games, apparently) simply having to replay a stage is crushing. I get the impression, admittedly with only one IRL example, that respawning enemies in a stage is too much to bear for the RPG crowd - without the use of repeated checkpoints like in an action game.

My god I've never written a post with so many caveats

[Necronopticous]

It is the humanity loss that is truly soul-crushing.

[Squire Grooktook]

I responded in more depth in the other thread, but yee, Humanity/Ember/Body is also something that needs to be taken account of.

Humanity at least is a very rare, difficult to farm meta currency (when you're first starting out, at least). It improves drop rate, which can be crucial for getting some cool stuff, and it's also important if you wanna save Solaire and other niceguy stuff. It also hugely matters if you actually care about multiplayer too.

I personally think Body from Demon's Souls and Embers from DS3 are even bigger a deal, since at least the latter is heavily heavily limited and carries a really significant buff for having it on hand. The little mini guide that came with my pre-order even advised "practice on bosses and die a bunch, then use Ember for the true battle".










Also while I'm here, I just want to make everyone mad by saying I like Code Vein better than any Fromsoft game.