Yeah I'm not leveling up my stats too evenly right now. pretty happy about having decided that from the get go. The main one I upgraded is : endurance(cuz I like stamina for having more consecutive actions and running longer). After that, I put a decent amount of points in strenght(for using composite bows) and luck(for increased drop rate of items). And 2 or 3 points so far in vitality. No point so far in intelligence, dex, magic & faith. We'll see if I want to use high level spells. My guess is : for a first playthrough, I won't be using spells/miracles much. I'll leave that for a 2nd run. Besides, I enjoy the sparring too much. so it'll be the way of swordfights for me.
Necronopticous wrote:I fell off the island 3 times within the first 10 seconds of gameplay, and got whacked by the kraken in maybe 30 seconds of gameplay on my fourth attempt. It took me nearly 2 hours of wrestling with the controls to find the first healing pond & save point.
Hahaha, you're getting the classic beginner experience with the game. :V
Reading about your experiences trying to do as much as possible at level 1 was also very amusing. Bravo.
I'm now quite deep into King's Field III, and I suspect I will be able to complete the game before this weekend is out. I haven't said much about it since I started, so here's picking up where I left off:
While the opening area of Quist feels full of exploration options, it eventually becomes clear that most of those options only lead to a short terminating path at the end of an, at this point, invisible square. You could explore the dungeon near Leon's house, but that's just a small room with a secret door to another small room. You could cross the river and explore the cave beyond the poisonous mushrooms, but that's just going to lead you to the queen's grave and a few treasures. You could try the path thru the eastern mountains, but that's just a short path leading to your first save point. It isn't until you step through the northern door and suspiciously long tunnel section that you'll hear the music change and realize you've entered the next "level."
There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but it's a very different approach than that of the previous game's more open-ended introduction, and it produces a very different feeling to the exploration experience. The areas that followed largely followed the same experiential pattern: seemingly multiple paths that all eventually terminate until you find the one that exits to the next level. It wasn't until I went through the forest of Varde that I was able to fully visualize what I had been feeling up until this point. The Pixy map reveals the core design of the game for what it essentially is: a collection of individually themed levels that are all neatly compacted into the same size square and connected to one or more other levels in a higher level connection map. I have to imagine that some fans of the previous game were severely disappointed by this, and I'm still processing my own thoughts on it, but there are certainly pros and cons to either design.
On the up side, the individual areas in the world of King's Field III are a lot more thematically distinct than any two different parts of Melanat island, and since they are clearly divided they are able to establish their own local rules and mechanics and stick to them throughout the entirety of the zone. This results in some interesting and unique exploration and gameplay that feels different depending on where you are. Of course, some of the areas are just duds. You'll finish them, like chores, and probably never return or think much about them at all afterward--case in point: The Wind Shrine.
On the down side you just don't feel much like you're trodding your own path, which was obviously one of the most intriguing aspects of the previous game, and really the entire appeal/pursuit of nonlinear game design. To make matters worse, there are some weird and arbitrary triggers in the game that have seemingly no rhyme or reason to their existence, or the method by which they will be resolved. For example, when you first arrive in Ralugo there's a guy blocking the entrance to the Path of Poison. Why? Who knows? How do you get rid of him? I have no idea, I came back a few times later in the game and one time he had moved out of the way slightly so I could get by. There was also a cave near the gold fountain in Ralugo that I could see through the trees and wondered how to get to for hours. Then, randomly, one of the townspeople told me they built me a bridge to it and it was suddenly accessible. The last thing I want in a nonlinear game is to be reminded that there is an intended "order" in which I am expected to explore, and the worst type of reminder is a seemingly arbitrary one with no discernible purpose beside funneling me down the game's "intended path."
Yep, pretty much nailed it ol' Necron.
III is the DS2 of King's Field..
One thing KF3 is in dire need of is looping shortcuts back to the earlier areas. I know a warp system serves this function but it definitely would've been nice in the early game to get from Ralugo back to Quist earlier.
Bloodborne noob question, do not want to consult a FAQ and get spoiled :
Now that I have 40 in both END and VIT, where should I invest ? My main concern is to use those Saw Cleaver and Visceral Pistols effectively to get through my NG. Also, I do not know anything about what can be considered magic in this game, but can consider using something that adds to the gameplay without breaking the pace of the intense close-range fights.
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
hang on a minute, you've put 40 into vit and end before going into damage at all? that's insane. especially as you don't really need to level end much at all in this game. how far into the game are you?
if you're using the saw clever i would go mostly into skill with a bit of strength. visceral attacks (riposts) scale with skill and as you can do visceral attacks against a lot of bosses you will get tons of damage from this.
arcane and bloodtinge are much more niche and probably better for messing around in subsequent play throughs.
Blinge wrote:
Oh gosh my first build was absolute trash, stats spread evenly and ended up using Blueblood sword without dumping stats into luck.
A real pro.
With the incredible success of the series, Souls players have really made an art out of min-maxing their characters and abusing specific item combinations, etc, and it's really interesting for sure.
But for me, this biggest pull of the series is exctly the opposite, going in blind like that, and just putting stats into whatever sounds reasonable (I'm sure many people experienced the mistake of thinking strength would help their damage output before realising the weapon they were using doesn't scale with STR). It's the mystery of the unknown that really makes this series something special, and most people will go through at least a few of the games without realising what half of the stats do.
Immryr wrote:hang on a minute, you've put 40 into vit and end before going into damage at all? that's insane. especially as you don't really need to level end much at all in this game. how far into the game are you?
Huum, not insane to me. I mean having tons of health and stamina helps me kill and not get killed. I guess this is highly prioritary over putting points in a scaling stat. I mean when I tried to put points in SKL for instance, I gained something like 1 or 2 damage. Nah, upgrading and infusing your weapon at low level looks better to increase your damage.
As for where I am, I just killed Amygdala, then the Blood Starved Beast ! Guess I did something reverse somewhere but hey, I just listened to that mask guy who told me not to get to Old Yarhnam and to leave the crazed hunter alone !
if you're using the saw clever i would go mostly into skill with a bit of strength. visceral attacks (riposts) scale with skill and as you can do visceral attacks against a lot of bosses you will get tons of damage from this.
arcane and bloodtinge are much more niche and probably better for messing around in subsequent play throughs.
Alright, if SKL boost visceral, I will go that route for now.
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
^ if you're going the SKL route, it makes more sense to use the spear not the cleaver. it scales with skl, unlike the cleaver that never fares better than a 'D'. untransformed movesets are similar and spear is serrated in both forms. btw the attribute soft cap for damage scaling is 25.
so you're basically at the start of the game and you have 40 into vit and end? my mind is blown once again! i think you must play the game very differently to me! do you do a lot of grinding for levels?
rapoon is right that the saw spear scales a bit better with skill than the saw cleaver. personally i use them both as kind of quality weapons, levelling both strength and skill, but put more points into skill with both due to how much extra damage you get from visceral attacks.
nah you can get to amygdala at pretty much any point in the game, but most people don't tackle that boss so early. blood starved beast is either the 2nd or 3rd boss in the game though, depending on if you take on a certain optional early game boss. (i'm guessing it's the 4th boss gui has killed)
bloodborne is a pretty weird game in that a huge amount of the bosses in the game are completely optional. you could also argue that it's the most linear or the least linear game in the souls series and not be wrong.
- Cleric Beast
- Gascoigne
- Cathedral Ward where the mask guy (girl ?) asked me no to get in Old Yarnham because he/she wants to deal with the crazed hunter his/herself. Ok.
- Kill the Cathedral Boss
- Walk in the Woods, long walk
- See a Castle in the distance, cannot get there, kill a boss.
- Keep walking in the woods, find a mansion near a lake, cannot kill the boss. Go back.
- Have gathered tons of Madman's Knowledge and finally understand that the more you have, the more things you "see" in this game. So I used all of them and surprise : giant ugly spider is watching me right here in the Ward.
- Get to the lecture building
- Spend a lot of time in the Nightmare Frontier. I do feel like I'm a little weak to be here, but I do love poisons swamps in souls games.
- Why not try that boss ? Get killed once, but kill her 2nd try. Not that hard, just wait, roll, punish.
- The masked one in the Ward has disappeared, so I guess he finally went to Old Yarnham and go see for myself. Get attacked by a really cool machine-gun, and then destroy the zone because yes, I'm overleveled to be here.
And here I am. All the while I was careful not to loose my blood, and spent every penny in leveling END and VIT. I got both of them to 40 just before trying Amygdala. I did not grind that much, except once or twice when I needed to replenish Blood Vial supplies.
I thought the Saw Cleaver had a unique moveset, so I'll definitely try the Saw Spear, and invest in SKL up to softcap 25
Thanks for non-spoiling advices.
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
oh.... weird way through the game! it's always fun to see stuff like that. iirc that means you must have bought the insanely expensive key to open the gate to the cathedral?
you might think this is a bit spoilery about the mask person, but you're already past this part now: Spoiler
she is actually talking about a mad hunter below oedon chapel, in the area where you killed gascoigne, not in old yharnam. if you go back there he will attack you and the mask woman joins you in fighting him.
Yes I bought the key, remember it was hard to sacrifice some levels to do this. Now that I think back about it, is the game supposed to go this way, without the key ?
- Cathedral Ward
- Old Yarnham
- Back to Cathedral Ward where the right door has opened
- Drop from a ledge then open a door back to Cathedral Ward, bypassing the necessity to buy the key.
If yes then I'm definitely doing many things reverse !
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Blinge wrote:Man would it kill people to remember names of places! they show on the screen every time you go there!
bergenwerth... BYRGENWORTH!!
Honestly, I had to look up that name. Having not played the game since it came out, it's not a name that's easy to remember. I understood what he meant when he wrote "lecture building" however.
guigui wrote:Yes I bought the key, remember it was hard to sacrifice some levels to do this. Now that I think back about it, is the game supposed to go this way, without the key ?
- Cathedral Ward
- Old Yarnham
- Back to Cathedral Ward where the right door has opened
- Drop from a ledge then open a door back to Cathedral Ward, bypassing the necessity to buy the key.
If yes then I'm definitely doing many things reverse !
yep, that is the normal route through this part of the game. i think the key is there to try and add options for alternate routes through the game on subsequent play throughs, a bit like the master key in ds1. unfortunately it's so expensive that it's quicker to just sprint down to old yharnam and kill BSB than it is to farm the souls.
just been thinking about how cool the master key is in ds1 and how the hunter chief emblem in bloodborne fails to fulfil the same role. i don't think making it a buyable but prohibitively expensive item is the right way to balance this kind of item, but it's actually quite hard to say what is.
it seems like fromsoft want these items to allow for even more freedom of choice in paths through the early game on subsequent playthroughs, or for a small percent of curious people on first playthroughs, without it being so prevalent that the majority of people will use it their first time. even though the games are fairly open (to varying degrees) fromsoft still wants to funnel the majority of first time players through an intended path as it becomes a lot harder to balance different areas the more open the paths between them are.
so what do you do? is the ds1 method of making it one of several cryptic items you can choose at the beginning best? do you make it an item you can find early but is well hidden? do you make it more openly available and rely on the old "if an area seems too tough, turn around" method of game design? something else?
It's the Super Metroid school of game design, and no game has ever done it better, before or since. The cryptic wall jump being hidden, yet available right from the start of the game, allowing you to turn the entire structure on its head is such a great idea, and even if the keys from DS1 or BB are much more mundane, I really appreciate that they have them.
I actually like the Bloodborne approach, from a "casual" perspective. I guess when talking different ways to challenge yourself and optimize your gameplay, encouraging grinding in order to sequence break is probably not the best idea though, and I guess it completely removes the prospect of using it from something like speedrun routing, where it would otherwise be a key element.
Maybe make it something you can buy only after beating an optional challenge that is first presented as something that you have to avoid as opposed to an actual optional boss (think the dragons from DeS or DS1, but less cheesy fights)? Someone going for completion would probably return to try and take it down eventually before finishing the game, only to discover an item that could be useful on subsequent runs.
you know, i hadn't even thought of SM's wall jump in this context, but you're right it's basically a hidden key to opening up different paths. maybe fromsoft could more directly take this kind of approach in sekiro with some kind of clever usage of the grappling mechanics, probably not though.
I have a lot more to say about King's Field III. Since my last post I have cleared the game with the good ending, and played through most of it a second time at level 1 in the same way that I did with the previous game. First, though, an aside I wrote regarding one of my favorite design elements in King's Field II:
Seath's Fountain
Throughout the game you will find crystal flasks, reusable containers that can be filled with a variety of curative liquids. Early on you are limited to the blue water of the various healing fountains found around Melanat island, which heals your HP. Later, you may discover Seath’s fountain while exploring the jail cells in the first of many enemy bases. Like the other fountains you’ve come across, you’ll find blue liquid flowing. However, there are also locked sluice gates blocking two other colored liquids from flowing. Green, which serves as a panacea that can cure all status ailments, and red, which can restore MP. Access to the red water is especially crucial. Up until that point you will have found precious few consumables capable of restoring MP and thus have likely only dabbled in the various magics you have learned. When all three liquids are unlocked, they combine into a gold liquid in the center which serves the purpose of all three other colors in one. Finally, as a bonus, additional shortcuts are opened up to or from other areas on the island.
This is a brilliant set piece because it simultaneously serves many different tenets of the game’s nonlinear structure.
First and foremost it provides a renewed purpose in exploration. Even prior to discovering Seath’s fountain, crystal flasks are one of the most satisfying treasures to find, and their appeal only grows as additional liquid types are made available. Large crystals will similarly become increasingly desirable once you learn that they can be crafted into additional flasks. These, along with dragon stones, the key items which unlock the sluice gates, become a primary impetus for scouring Melanat high and low.
A fascinating point about Seath’s fountain is that it is both hidden, and entirely optional. There are two different entrances through which it can be discovered fairly early on, so it is unlikely any player will go very long without finding it. However, it’s remarkable to note that there are no major triggers or progress gates attached to the fountain. You could complete the game from start to finish without ever bothering with it, or conquer it early and make it your main hub for the remainder of the playthrough. Should you choose the latter, your capabilities will be improved in a tangible and meaningful way that will never be later diluted by a realization that it was just a box to be checked along the way.
