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The Surge interests me, but I don't think that studio really gets it, as far as what really makes a souls game. Plus, I prefer character creation in these types of games
I never really looked into armored core, I figured it was army games with robots rather than souls like
The more I think about the comparison the more it does feel closer to home than one would think. While it is a mission based series, the main drive of the game is to perform missions for credit which you can use to customize your awesome robot. There is a huge amount of depth to building your machine. You would be surprised how much a missions success rate comes down to your load out and where you prioritized parts. It even has the Weight Load mechanic from the Souls series, though it would be more accurate to say that Souls borrowed the idea from AC.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyk
It's not quite "army game" but that isn't a stretch either. One major difference is that there are bosses in the game (usually other AC Units though sometimes massive war machines) and there is also an in-game battle arena which is simply about pitting your machine against fifty or so unique AC builds in a ranking tournament. The games are also fairly difficult, especially since you have to work your way up from a standard unit no better than the small A.I. security droids and amass enough money to build your own custom death machine.
The plot is pretty much a variation of the same deal: You're a Raven (AC Mercenary) who takes jobs offered by the all-powerful corporations that rule the world and use Ravens like yourself to fight covert wars against each other for control. Each entry does tend to have a central plot, but it's very hands off and easy to miss vital information because you spend more time backing one faction over another.
Im hoping Miyazaki will stick true to his former self and not make a sequel to Bloodborne.
Although I can only speak for Dark Souls 2 I really think it did not even come close to the greatness that was Dark Souls 1. A lot of things 2 does with the plot takes away from the meaning of 1 and I refuse to acknowledge it being canon. Why didnt they set Dark Souls 2 in a different part of the world during the Age of Dark and not reference 1 at all? Instead we get cringe worthy shields with Solaire on it and every big plot character from 1 they put so much effort in to present them as epic beings of the history of Lordran is brought down by the "oh its just a cycle" thing. I hate it.
These games and their way of storytelling work best on a clean slate where every aspect of it is new, because exploration is such a huge part of it. Encountering familiair things during while "exploring" takes away from the experience.
I cringed when I found Havels Armor in Dark Souls 2 and when I heard there was an Onion Knight with similar name and role as Siegmeyer in 3 I lost all hope for it to be any good.
It's a shame that you "lost all hope for it to be good" because it's probably a 9.5/10 game overall. And Dark Souls 2 is probably a 9/10. There's no shame in not being as good as a 10/10 game like Dark Souls 1.
I still plan on checking out DSII and III eventually. Honestly, DSIII looks the most promising between the two, but that's largely because DSII looks to be a game that sacrificed quality for quantity. I'm still willing to check it out and be surprised. It wouldn't be the first time the black sheep entry was my favorite title in a series after all.
While I can agree that Miyazaki probably intended for Dark Souls to be a standalone title, I'm not really bothered by its continuation either. As I said, checking some lore info on DSIII makes it feel like Miyazaki still pulls through with some interesting ideas that tie it back to the original lore. I've heard less about DSII but I attribute that to its mixed reception. I hear the PVP is considered the best in the series though.
I'm actually for Bloodborne to get a sequel, hell I wouldn't mind for Demon's Souls to get one either, but I feel it would be best to take the initial themes and concepts and create a new story and setting from scratch than try to figure out how to make a sequel from the original, and perhaps Dark Souls should have done the same. DSII was out of Miyazaki's hands though and it was nice that he came back to finish the series with DSIII. It may be the most fanservicy entry, but most finales tend to be.
Still, the core games are fun and the series is unique enough where there are not as many titles that are like it, maybe four or five games off the top of my head that try to mimic it, but that's still a pretty small pool of titles.
Dark Souls II's plot does not take anything away from DS1. The world of Dark Souls is cyclical, it was even this way in the original DS1.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete for President
Also, how does having an armor set make you lose hope in a game? I'm really confused by this.
I just finished getting the platinum trophy for Dark Souls II. I have to say, it's a really really good game. I didn't enjoy it as much as the original (like pretty much everyone else), but it's still a fantastic game and a worthy sequel.
maybe it's experience, but i found DSII easier. this is my analogy
ds1 : ds2 :: berserk : lord of the rings
it seemed much brighter to me, more happy if that's a thing
but yeah they're still 9.5 and 9
it is hard to appreciate 2 maybe, after playing 1 and hoping for something better, but it's hard to do that in any media
edit:
this shirt is on sale
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IMO it does though. In Dark Souls 1 all the major plot characters are introduced in the intro. Nito, Seath, Gwyn, the Witches, Furtive Pygmy. All of them - save Pygmy kinda - are written about, talked about, presented as epic ancient beings whose actions have shaped Lordran. They slayed dragons thus the Age of Fire began (their very own Age), but soon the flames will fade. Witch tried to copy the flame and brought chaos upon the world. Gwyn sacrificed himself to the flame to reignite it (and kinda worked) but now the flame fades again. Introducing Undead who sets out and meets all these characters who have done all these crazy things and eventually after slaying Gwyn we have a choice.Quote:
Originally Posted by ScruffingtonDark Souls II's plot does not take anything away from DS1. The world of Dark Souls is cyclical, it was even this way in the original DS1.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete for President
Also, how does having an armor set make you lose hope in a game? I'm really confused by this.
I just finished getting the platinum trophy for Dark Souls II. I have to say, it's a really really good game. I didn't enjoy it as much as the original (like pretty much everyone else), but it's still a fantastic game and a worthy sequel.
Either prolong the Age of Fire like Gwyn did, or speed up the process and usher in the Age of Dark which will eventually show up anyway as legend has it. While the Fire option is indeed somewhat of a cycle the Dark ending is not. We are left with a choice, but we know that the Age of Dark will come eventually no matter the choice. We are led to believe (and righteously so) that the Age of Fire is special. It's a one time thing even though it can be prolonged. Beings have fought hard so shape the world as it was and they were unique characters with unique motives in their one of a kind age. But then Dark Souls 2 steps in and says: "well prolonging the Age of Fire is kinda what always happens and none of these dudes mattered cause it happened tons of times and Age of Dark? Never heard of it.". All that effective world and character building of 1 is just instantly wiped out. If something happens lots it's not special. If many people do the same thing it's not special. Dark Souls 1 emphasised the uniqueness of it all, gave identity to characters and Lordran, giving the player a meaningful existence in an otherwise doomed world. Dark Souls 2 takes that all down by its repetition.
The Havels armour was an example of the many rehashed lore and characters that Dark Souls 2 leeches on and takes away from their identity and meaning.
Actually some fans speculate that the Souls world goes back and forth between an Age of Fire and Dark. You can be the Dark Lord, but it doesn't mean the total end of the fire, instead the character reigns as the Dark Lord until another Hollow shows up and kills them and chooses to either take their place or reignite the First Flame. In truth, because Lord Gwyn bound the souls of humans to the bonfire and the First Flame, he has effectively created the ultimate contingency plan to make sure that even if his efforts failed with the first "Chosen Undead" there was always a chance a new "Chosen" would rise up and follow suit. Even Demon's Souls alludes to the fact that the conflict of the story itself is cyclical nature as not only has all the crap with the Old One happened before, but even putting the damn thing to sleep just means it will be just another few centuries before another asshole comes along and wakes it up to gain power. So far, every game Miyazaki has done has had a theme of cycles and the sheer despair it causes.
Dark Souls concept borrows heavily from Norse Mythology with the extinguish of the first flame being sort of like a less violent Ragnarok. Course in actual Norse Mythology, while Ragnarok meant the end of Odin and the Age of the Gods, it didn't mean the gods wouldn't still be around, as figures like Heimdall were prophesied to survive the great battle and become the new ruler of the gods in the next age. Similar in tone, while your Chosen Undead certainly takes down the major big wigs of the last age, there are still several gods in the mythos who seem to have simply disappeared. I mean what the hell actually happened to the real Gywnevere? She simply left with all the gods in the first game to someplace unknown and then DSIII has her partially pop up as the queen mother to the game's major location where she once again, does some stuff and skips town before all the crazy trout happens.
My point is that while I can get behind the original notion of DS being a one and done story, I feel the vagueness of the plot and the creativity of the writers and fans has more or less come up with good solutions to how the story can continue past the first game.
So is there an equivalent of Ornstein & Smough in Dark Souls III? Is there any boss that really stands out as the Big Bad of DS3 for its difficulty?
I was told the Nameless King is pretty challenging, but I want to hear what everyone else thinks is the toughest DS3 boss. :P
It's probably mostly true. But some of it depends on your play style and the type of build you have. Aldrich can wreck certain builds, or certain play styles, especially if you're new to him. Pontiff Sulyvan is one I'm still not confident of while going in, and I honestly can't remember if I've solo'd him yet or not (there's 3 NPC summons outside and they're just too tempting). And The Dancer works a lot like Aldrich, she can easily catch certain builds or styles off guard, and there's plenty of videos out there that showcase how off rhythm her style is, so its pretty common that she throws most people off their game once or twice. But mostly yeah, Nameless King is the beast to beat. Though unlike O&S he's optional, and I'm not sure O&S were designed to be "the fight". Nameless King was designed to be "the fight". So it probably doesn't resonate quite the same. There's no easy parallel in the game that I can think of. Plus there are DLC fights that are contenders
The closest thing to an O&S style fight is in the recent DLC, with a battle between two demons with very different styles that keep you on your toes. In terms of a gank fight, there is a really clever one in the main game proper, but it's a bit of a subversion on gank fights and from what I hear, not particularly difficult.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scruffington
Nameless King was the toughest, but I believe the last DLC pretty much brought a few fights that knock him down a few pegs. Two of the bosses are basically DSIII's versions of Artorias and the Black Dragon from the DS1 DLC.
Not considering DLC, the difficulty of bosses in DS3 depends on a lot of factors - whether you summon help (makes most much easier, obviously), what order you do them in, and what your build is.
I've played ds1 dlc and ng+ and have to say I am glad I chose the game to begin with. I'm now on ds2 and I have tp eat my words on how much doubt and critism I gave it. Because somehow I actually like it. It can't compare to ds1 but It is fun and I just find it different and interesting. I am in my way in completing it but before I do i must get the dlc. I have been wanting to play demon souls and bloodbourne but I'll have to have ds3 out of the way.
Yeah, I feel the exact same way as you do. DS2 initially feels different...REALLY different. But that's only because you get to be so familiar with the original Dark Souls. As soon as you push through that uncomfortable feeling, the game actually becomes quite enjoyable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bri
Yeah, I didn't enjoy it until my second or third attempt. And I didn't like Dark Souls until my second or third attempt either. I still don't like it the way most people do. I appreciate what it brings to the table, but there's a lot of things that bother me, and Dark Souls 2 has a lot of things that bother me, but they're completely different things. They're extremely different games. And they both bring fantastic things to the table, but they're completely different fantastic things. DS1 has much better art style, lore infusion, and more impactful NPCs and quests. DS2 has much better weapon variety and combinations, dual wielding is legitimately a thing and a really fun thing at that, and the outfit options are ridiculous. Fashion Souls at its highest. And I initially hated the way aptitude and attunement worked with your agility and animation speed, but after a while it made sense. Dark Souls 1 only had an encumberance issue that you could overcome with building up your equip load. But it's much more in depth in 2. You feel like your character is actually becoming more competent the higher your agility gets. And the life gem thing got a lot of criticism initially, coupled with the fact that it can sometimes take forever to garner enough estus flasks to survive long runs on. But after playing Bloodborne and coming back and treating life gems that way, like a band-aid in a desperate situation, it worked a lot better. Save estus for safe times to recover, but life gems are where it's at. And many people still hate that, but that's how it was apparently meant, and when you don't fight that system, its a lot better
Finally getting around to finishing a dark souls playthrough.
All I'm gonna say is smurf Gwyn. Almost beat him one time then got smurfed every other time.
After playing ng+ I take my time with him and practice parrying. Then when I can't beat him I'll summon solaire and a friend to help :) Grampa Gwyn is tough though for sure!Quote:
Originally Posted by Slothy
Yeah, being my first real full playthrough Solaire is most assuredly dead. Wish I could summon him though. I try to do the parrying when he does his combo of horizontal swings. Block the first hit, parry the second, stab him in the face, repeat. It's mostly all the other moves that get me eventually. The one time I did get him doing that combo most of the time I was one hit away from beating him when I died. I swear I almost cried. Just a matter of time though.
What type of character are you playing as?
I agree! Only a matter of time. Yes Sunbro is definitely an Npc you must try and keep alive to get help not unless you're the type to just carry out on your own ( I'm not for sure lol ) I do have to say that O&S, DlC bosses and Gwyn are the ones I look foward to every time! I try to get summoned alot for all of them just cause.
I went heavy in strength, a bit of dexterity and roughly equal amounts of vitality and endurance. Running around in black knight armour with a black knight shield and sword and havels ring to keep me under 50% equipment load.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyk
Actually remembered I hadn't done the dlc stuff so taking a break to do that at the moment. But I'll get back at Gwyn soon I'm sure and get the parrying down.
Gwyn may seem easy after a go with a couple particular bosses in the DLC
You never know. Even the sanctuary guardian took some practice. Made it to Astoria but do not have time for that tonight. Back at it tomorrow.
Artorias is easily one of my favorite fights in DS1.
Kind of getting the hang of Artorias but didn't sleep well so going to wait until later to attempt him more. Maybe I'll have a nap and try him again. :jess:
Only thing I can't deal with is his charge up so far. Haven't had much luck trying to stagger him in time to interrupt it. Maybe next time.
If you're handy with a bow you can shoot him in the head while he charges to stun him. Otherwise 2-handing any greatsword, axe or club should stun him in 2-3 hits. I would recommend not forcing it though, if you're too far away it is safer to just let him buff. Lastly, he does give it away when he's about to buff: it's usually 2 rolls backwards into charging. Good luck :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Slothy
I couldn't let my Gwyn struggles go (I have trouble with letting things go in general). So five tries later Gwyn is dead. I'll just complete the DLC next playthrough. I'm not overly bothered about missing some things. But NG+ now and the first bell has rung.
Alright! Good luck in Ng+Quote:
Originally Posted by Slothy
I'm already greatly enjoying seeing what bits I can bypass to get to the major areas, and exploring some places I didn't fully explore before.
nice! the exploration was so cool, you could reach the bottom bell from multiple ways
I may be jumping into Dark Souls 2 in the not so distant future, any advice from DS2 Veterans?
oooft goodluck. DS2 is like different from DS1 and it feels so weird and hard to play, maybe youll get it but im just saying goodluck to you. atleast DS3 is more like DS1 than DS2 is.
I, on the contrary, think that DS2 is still just Dark Souls no matter what people say. It's not harder, more awkward, easier, or anything else. The world is bloated compared to DS1 but so it goes.
Adaptability is a very important stat.
dont get me worn, i dont think dark souls 2 isnt a dark souls game, it definatly feels like it. im just saying that i had a harder time with it than the other 2, maybe ill play it again and change my opininon. also i like the graphics on it, they are btter than 1 and 3 for me lol.
There's a lot more enemy tracking on hits, there's a lot more ledges to fall off of, the iframe mechanic is a lot stricter, there's a LOT more weapons to choose from, and armor, and play styles vary a lot more. If you've played Bloodborne, get life gems and treat them like blood vials. Don't rely on estus, or get stressed at how limited it is in the beginning. And yeah, adaptability will eventually help you be less slow awkward and clunky. Also DS2 has a lot more "gotcha" moments, where the only way to survive is to know it's coming. DS1 only had a handful of those by comparison. DS2 however loves hiding enemies behind things, or above you, or snipe you from a distance. They love poison, and curse, and will smash through everything you have with dark damage before you know what's going on.
Started this last night, didn't get far because it was late and I finished FFXII first. Just reached Majula and met the Emerald Herald for the first time.
My starting class is Knight once again, cause I love consistency, though I was sad I didn't get to start with a cool armor set or a shield for my trouble. My gift was the Petrified Something, cause someone told me you could get a pretty snazzy item from the Crows nest by doing so, and I got a Great Demon Axe, which will likely stay in my inventory forever cause it's not favorite type of weapon, and I am nowhere near the stat requirements to use it.
I have died once so far in the training area. I was trying to lure the ogre like thing from the boat or something, and did not see the other one that is hiding behind the rocks near the path. He basically snuck up behind me and ate me. This is Dark Souls indeed. I think my priority right now is to get a shield and a bow ASAP.
Lucky for you there's an easy access shield that is trivial to obtain. I don't remember about bows since I never use them.
Dark Souls 2 has a bunch of great ideas that they shouldn't have neglected for later games; I'm interested to see if you notice them (and their conspicuous absence from DS3 in retrospect).
Well it just so happens that I did acquire Dark Souls III as well, so it will be interesting to see what changed. I can already tell DSIII sped up the combat considerably.
Onto DSII, I just beat my first boss, the Old Dragon Rider. Not too difficult outside of having more health than I would care for and his Halberd has some funky hit boxes. I acquired the actual Knight set, but I'll need to beef up my endurance and weight load before it becomes viable. I also farmed the Old Knights long enough to almost have all of their armor sets except the leggings. I even have the Ultra Greatsword now, but I'm far too underleveled to make any use of it. I need to find better equipment, or at least something I can live with looking at #fashionsouls
Despite whining about needing a shield, so far it seems like two-handing my weapon and just dodging has been more useful, that or my hands are still trying to play Bloodborne. I did find that easy shield, but still ended up picking up a good medium shield anyway.
I like the locales so far. The Crestfallen Knight is the same, but it was interesting that he runs a Covenant now. Not sure what the Covenant of Blue does, but joined it anyway in hopes it will keep invaders down. The cat is amusing as hell and my fave character so far. I also bought the Ring that restores a bit of health when you defeat and enemy, maybe I subconsciously do want to replay Bloodborne. I like the fact the blacksmith looks like the former leader of the Stonefang Tunnels from Demon's Souls, that was a nice touch. I just met the Cleric who teaches miracles, but I like the fact she feels like a con artist. These guys really don't like the clergy for some reason because they always turn out to be a bit more evil or two-faced than the other characters. I also met the cool buccaneer swordwoman with the Pinwheel looking mask. She seems interesting. The Armor Merchant is pretty cool as well. I kind of like his timid personality. Reminds me of Stockpile Thomas from Demon's Souls as well. I haven't quite decided on the Emerald Herald yet, she's a bit too stiff and trying too hard to be mysterious for my taste.
I don't really want to dive into the Wharf area yet, so I may backtrack and check out a new area first, especially since I fast traveled back to Marjula to level up and maybe check out some more armor wares.
I haven't quite figured out what build to go for, but I do feel the addition of Adaptability and its affect on using Estus to be kind of lame. Sort of makes that stat feel more high priority than others which is kind of annoying. At least Poison Resistance is gone. Do I need to focus on Dex for dual-wielding or is still strength mostly?
I hear we have a fourth type of magic now in this game as well. I dabbled in sorceries in Demon's Souls, and while I originally was going to build a Paladin type character in DS1, I ended up really liking Pyromancy more (especially since I could buff it without sacrificing soul levels) and while third time is a charm for Miracles, I'm curious what all this fuss is about Hex magic, especially since I've heard it has a spell to deal with mages.
I feel like the Hollow form is kind of silly looking. We went from looking like the ReDead's from Zelda to looking like Warcraft Zombies. It's amusing to say the least. Also, what is up with those three piglets in Marjula?
There's a stat in every Soulsborne game which is actually just the most important one. Yes, you have to put points in this new stat, but you also level up faster than other Souls games and end the game at a higher level, so you aren't really "giving up" anything.
There are some really obscure NPC interactions with various people in town which is always good and Soulsy.
Your first boss was the Old Dragonrider, eh. That is not the typical first boss and you're gonna find a very easy zone as a result.
Nice! This thread is still going after almost five years.
If you're itching for a Soulsborne / Metroidvania crossover, this is highly recommended: https://ska-studios.com/games/salt-and-sanctuary/
Yeah it's a very faithful representation of what Dark Souls would be like in 2D. I wish it had way more weapons to find though.
Dark Souls Remastered just announced for Nintendo Switch to release at the end of May, in case anyone was interested in playing on the go.
I saw the announcement but I didn't look too closely. Is this purely a graphical upgrade (plus new platforms of course)? Or are they actually changing anything?
Mostly graphical, but the multiplayer will now allow up to six players. Invasions are going to get interesting... PS4 is also getting a trilogy box set. Funny right after I just picked up DS2 and 3, but if the multiplayer is locked behind the PS+ stuff like Bloodborne, then I'll be fine with my PS3 version of DS2.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spuuky
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In gaming news, I went to the Cathedral of Blue and was kind of surprised by whom I found there. He was surprisingly easier than he was in DS1 but not having his Hammer Bro likely helped. Took him down and got snubbed by the head of the Blue Knight Covenant.
Now I'm checking out the Forest of Giants, which feels more like the Undead Burg. Met Pate, who is just as much of a prick as the other guy with a name that starts with P in all of the other entries. Beat the Heide Knight and obtained his pretty cool sword which replaced me broadsword at the moment, and is making me reconsider letting this game do my Paladin Build. Met the Pursuer, who has way wonkier hit boxes with his swords than the Old DtagonSlayer and everything in Heide's Tower of Flame. I thought I was dodging most of his attacks because it looked the same as when I dodged it from the other guys but apparently I am wrong.
This does bring me to one gripe I have with the game, something I've heard people talk about but now seeing it in action, I can concur it's a real pain. There is no "weight" to hits in this game. I've taken hits I never noticed and I've hit opponents and had to quickly scan their lie bar to make sure it connected cause it just sometimes feels like we're all LARPing with invisible weapons. It's odd cause it seems to vary though, Halberd and bows have weight but some of the swords don't seem to. It's getting a bit annoying when I feel like I'm doing better than I thought only to learn I've lost most of my health to "chip damage". Also, while I'm griping, I don't appreciate the changes to Parry and Counters. Seems long-winded and over-visualized, and it's a pain trying to get the counter timing right.
I was able to get the key to the blacksmith and the mansion as well so yay for three Estus Flasks! I also have enough equip load to wear the better Knight Armor without fat rolling, so yay for Fashion Souls. I was also excited to find a Short Bow in the Blacksmith shop, so after purchasing some arrows, I'm feeling more complete since Bows have been a part of my builds since Demon's Souls. Course I'm going to need to throw some point sin Dex now and eventually find a Longbow I can bother to upgrade.
I'm digging the bigger emphasis on the horror of going Hollow in this game, to be frank, I never felt like Hollowing was such a big deal in DS1 from a story standpoint and saw it as a "Cursed with Awesome" kind of deal, but DSII is doing a better job really driving home why being a Hollow is a bad thing. The story is also interesting once I really decided that we're now deep into the "Age of Man" when the Age of Gods is so long past that people don't even remember the story of the First Flame, which gives the setting a more interesting flavor that I'm digging.
Despite some wonky mechanics and design choices here and there, I've been having a blast with the game so far. It probably helps that I have enough Souls Experience, that I'm actually making a decent pace in terms of progress. I'm certainly getting farther in areas and with bosses than I normally would.
Pretty much got the whole day to play, so lots of updates.
I completed the Forest of Giants and went to the Bastille until the freaking terrible trio kept kicking my ass, not helped by the corridor leading up to them having like eight Royal Swordsmen with their bastard swords in small hallways. So I left and went to this one forest area but didn't get far due to a statue person. Went to the Wharf and completed that, only to wind right back into the Bastille, but with better stats and a few more upgrades to my shield, I was able to beat them with a summon. I also got invaded here and lucked out by having one of the blue knights in my covenant show up to do some damage to them, which made finishing them off not so hard.
Decided I didn't want to bother with the Sinner's Keep and decided to buy that ring to help reduce fall damage and plunge into the gaping hole in Majula. Beat the Rat Vanguard after a second attempt cause I wasn't paying attention to the petrification build up. Reached the Gutter, which wasn't quite as bad as Blight Town or the Valley of Defilement, up until I ran out of torches and found out they merged the most annoying part of Blighttown (the poison spitting smurfers) and the place you fight Nito in DS1 (it's pitch black and easy to fall to your death if you don't have a reliable light source) so the last part was a chore. The Black Gulch, as well as the devs who designed it, can go smurf themselves. I'll need to come up with a game plan on how to reach the Rotten without taking too much punishment in that hellhole.
Went to the Huntsman's Grounds and dealing with more poison than I would care for, especially after coming out of the Black Gulch. This place is interesting cause it reminds me a little of the swamp area from Xenoblade, but also has undertones of the freaking snake monster woods in Bloodborne as well. While trying to deal with a particularly annoying enemy in the area, I got invaded and promptly killed by a mage, who then proceeded to send me an email to tell me I'm a casual. Oh Dark Soul community, you had me at hello...
With all that said, I'm planning on taking a break for a bit tomorrow. Didn't get anything accomplished that I wanted to today cause I gamed too much, and I'm not really sure where to go from here.
With all that said, I may have to agree with KingK's review of DSII in that the game seems a bit more annoyingly difficult by means of the game really having a love of ambushes and swarming you with gank fights. It's like they're going out of their way in some places to be annoying about this. I've also decided that Adaptability is a symptom of this same issue. It's basically a stat designed to nerf the player for the game's sake and now the players have to make sure to throw a couple of more levels into it just so we can be on par with the early games in terms of healing and recovery, which frankly, were not exactly lightning quick in those games themselves, but it's a bit ridiculous to watch your character take their sweet time to chug some Sunny D.
To look at this on the other hand, I'm actually surprised how many powerful accessories I've already found. I have a regen rings for both health and stamina, one that restores health for enemies killed, and a few others I don't remember acquiring in either previous game until almost near the end and after looking them up on the Wiki. So it's not like the game isn't throwing you a bone here and well, but I'm kind of getting sick of getting run through the wringer in some of these places. I also want to find my Sun Covenant, cause I prefer Jolly Cooperation over PVP BS.
The Black Gulch really is a bitch, for such a short zone.
You can Jolly Cooperate without a Covenant at all, but ... on the bright side, you get your Sunlight Covenant fairly soon if you don't just miss it.
Hey the Huntsman's Copse has one of my favorite bosses in the game in it!
Didn't get as much as I had hoped. I learned that the Gutter had an item that could be used to restore one of the petrified people blocking my way. I convinced my self it was in this treasure chest on a ledge only accessible by getting to the bottom part of the stage and was getting nailed left and right due to the darkness, my lack of torch and the fact the enemies have some kind of elemental enhancement on their weapons that circumvented my shield's protection and took a chunk of my health. That treasure turned out to be a Big Club. So I went back to Majula to buy some supplies and only then discovered I already had the item in question in my inventory from my initial run of the area. Go figure.
I ended up restoring the girl who teaches pyromancy and decked her out in some Hollow Infantry garb. I reached the point of the Faded Woods where the fog takes over and decided that I didn't want to deal with it until I had more time. Went back to the Hunting Grounds and ran into that valley area where the Hollowed Huntman with Dark imbued whips and axes jump down to kill you. Beat them, reached the bridge and thought I heard a bow being prepared and while looking up with shield raised to see where the arrow was coming, managed to fall down the only freaking holy on the bridge. As it turns out, for the moment, the sound I heard was just the rope bridge itself. So I fought my back there to retrieve my souls and decided I had enough to get some more levels. So I went back to Majula to add some levels in my neglected Adaptability stat, bought more arrows and Human Effigies, and called it a night.
Since I began with a Knight Build, I have far lower Attunement than usual, so I haven't been able to purchase any magic yet, not that my Faith or Intellect stats are high enough to cast anything either, but I have enough of all of the items to cast spells that I'm debating on whether I should bother. I ended up using a bit of Pyromancy in DS1, but I've heard it was nerfed in this entry a bit due to how overpowered it was in that game. While I usually teach myself a little magic in these games, it's usually for situational reasons and not necessarily for the full benefits of a dedicated caster. Anyone here play casters?
I also found this video by VaatiVidya concerning the Remaster, as well as some speculation on the new FROM Software games Shadows Die Twice.
If you use a weapon you don't care about, or just watch the durability, you can make your way through the poison area and break most of the statues that cause you problems. But it hurts a weapon's durability pretty quickly. But you can get through about 75% of it before it becomes questionable to that weapon. The rest of it isn't too bad after that. And since it's so small, you can quickly learn the safe areas and not have to worry even as much
I don't know if you've found out on your own, but I think you had a question of dual-wielding earlier, and you should know that you need 150% of the stat requirements for each weapon to make good use of it. I think if you just meet the requirements, you just get to have a weapon in each hand, but if you meet half-again the requirements, you can do what's called a power stance. It's one of DS2's major claims to fame
And magic is what you make of it. It's handy for a warrior if you run out of arrows, you can still hit from a distance, but other than that, it's probably best used with a little more dedication. I've enjoyed my warrior mages in DS1 and 2, but I focused on magic, and infusing melee weapons with magic to use that bonus for the most part, instead of vice-versa
Also, I don't know how much pyromancy or sorcery got nerfed, but I watched cleric lightning magic get nerfed in the middle of a playthrough on youtube from a patch. But you don't sound interested in being a cleric anyway
Also Spuuky brought up a good point on the levels. I'm not sure if DS1 had a level cap, but you certainly feel like you're end-game levels are around 70-80
In DS2 it doesn't feel broken until well after 100, especially if you were to focus a lot on adaptability and attunement, it wouldn't feel broken until close to 150 from regular stat levels. My sorceress character is still pretty fragile at 120 because of this. But at least it feels fair, because I'm straight up a swifty glass cannon
After spending most of the evening getting my ass handed to me by the Undead Executioners and cherry tapping the Red Phantom guarding the gate, I fought the Executioner's Chariot, which is probably the most well known boss in the game and didn't disappoint. Largely cause it was a cool concept, more of a puzzle fight than the usual "strafe and poke" fights that make up the majority of the boss battles in this series and it really brought me back to Demon's Souls.
Confession time, I still think Demon's Souls had the best bosses in the series so far. While they are certainly the easiest as well, I liked the fact the bosses were pretty unique from each other and always had a bit of a puzzle aspect, which is something I don't get a whole lot of in the later entries which prefer more kinetic and straight up battles that test your skills and greed.
I also met Creighton, who has a score to settle with Pate, which is pretty interesting. So far most of the masters I've met are not interested in me due to my low magic stats, so I may throw a few points in so they will start talking to me.
While I could go back to the Huntmen's Copse and fight the actual boss, I may finally return to the Sinner's place and finally get one of the Old One's Souls that I've been neglecting. After that, I may tackle The Rotten one more time.
The theme of last night's gaming excursion was "Gank and Invasion". I took a break from the Huntsman's Copse and decided to go back to the Lost Bastille to deal with the only other plot relevant soul I can go after that doesn't involve Black Gulch. Though more specifically, I'm hunting Branches of Yore so I can get access to a few characters here and there. Instead, I found the Belfry Tower and the little Dwarf men, as well as a very persistent invader who was likely one of the Bell Guardian Covenant. I feel I may have inadvertently gained his ire, cause when he first popped up, he bowed to me and I tried to stumble through the gestures, only to accidentally pick the "I won't run" gesture that comes off a bit cocky. Guy used magic and had a heavy shield and halberd combo, but regardless, I did paltry damage to them regardless and got whooped about three different times.
This concluded with a rematch against the Bell Gargoyles, except they brought the extended family. Got my ass kicked the first time but took them down the second once I focused on eliminating them one at a time.
With the Bastille Key, I decided to explore the area again to open up the paths I couldn't find, and again I was consistently hounded by an invader with a Miracle/Hex build. I could actually do damage to him, but he could also use healing spells and had this annoying habit of always popping up before I could eliminate all the enemies in the area so I kept getting ganked by him chasing me into enemy filled areas.
While there are certainly more bonfires in this game than the previous one, I've also noticed that several of them also have enemies parked right next to them, the one in the Lost Sinner's area being a rather obnoxious one as it's next to three archers and teleporting in always begins with me hearing them arm their Heavy Crossbows. I went down to the bottom area where the obnoxiously strong lion men monsters are waiting in the heavy water, and despite summoning that cool swordwoman character from Mirrah, she apparently doesn't have any Estus and never bothered to heal after we got thumped by the lion monsters and cursed suicide zombies. This meant she didn't last too long against the Lost Sinner. The real annoying bit is that I nearly beat her on my first try but we traded last blows and she was a tad quicker than me.
I'm aware I can light up the room to make the fight easier, but I'm out of torches. They're an interesting mechanic, but I'm annoyed that torches are hard to come by, and apparently no one sells them, which makes the mechanic more annoying than fun sadly. I'll try to beat her tonight since it was getting late when I finally reached her. I like the shout out to DS1 and the hint she's the reincarnated Witch of Izalith due to the "bug" that crawls into her mask being the same type you slay in the Bed of Chaos fight.
I never came even remotely close to running out of torches. I had like ... three hours of torch time left at the end of the game. And I light every single torch stand in the Pit, of which there are ... many. We must play different in that regard. I'm pretty sure they can also drop from any enemy that carries a torch themselves although that's not super-common?
I've gotten a few from enemy drops but farming them isn't something I really want to do since that's what eventually got me to finish DS1 and is likely my main gripe against Bloodborne is farming items is a chore in these games.
Part of my issue was not noticing the time until I had already burnt through a bunch of torches already and I wouldn't be surprised if I tackled the Pit way earlier than most do, so several deaths and bad item management is likely why I'm torch-less at the moment. I just think it's silly that something so plain and common is restricted to treasure and rare drops, whereas the lockstone keys, Human Effigys, and healing items are not. Hell, I wish I could find a merchant that sells a decent bow.
It's not like I need the torch to beat this fight or anything, I managed to nearly beat her my first try without it, it's just an interesting novelty that would be cool to do, but it's not important.
Lighting up that particular room is way more or less important based on your character type and playstyle. You can't stay locked on at any distance if it's not lit up, for instance.
I'm a melee man, so I need to be close to her anyway. The real hard part was just losing track of her when she ran away or when she goes all Dragoon on you. After a few attempts, I finally took her down, I even helped another player take her down as well. I used the Branch of Yore to unstone Straid, and was finally able to unload most of my Boss Souls for weapons and spells I'll likely never use, with the exception of the Dragonrider Bow and possibly the Warped Blade once I get my DEX high enough to use it. I'm not far from being able to use the Pursuer's Ultra Greatsword, but not quite sure if I really want to incorporate it. I tend to favor more speedy builds and I wouldn't be surprised if the weight alone will be an issue. Of anything, I'm having a bit of a Demon's Souls moment and tending to prefer my basic weapons over the more fancy shmancy ones. I should probably check to see if I can utilize a power stance with any of my current weapons.
This does bring me to the issue I have right now which is the sheer lack of reliable sources of Titanite. I kind of feel that a good part of my problem with the Lost Sinner and the Rotten may be that my gear is at a bit of a standstill cause basic Titanite is not as easy to come by in the areas I've explored so far. I have enough specialty items to upgrade the boss weapons, and I even have a decent amount of third tier upgrade materials, but no sources of basic and Large Titanite. While I'm on the subject, I wish I could find an easily accessible merchant who sells higher tier arrows, cause the Wood arrows are just not cutting it anymore.
With Lost Sinner down, I'm either going to attempt the Rotten again, or finish Huntsman's Copse and fight the Skeleton Lords. I did explore that Foggy Woods, which is certainly unnerving, but was more terrified by these Lion Head Warriors in the next section which just wrecked me if I let my guard down for a moment. On the brightside, I found an upgrade to my Stamina Regen ring which was supper nice. Is the Stamina Regen shield in this game as well, or did they finally come to their senses and drop it from the game?
I guess I'm not SURPRISED that you didn't find Steady Hand McDuff but he's a pretty important dude to find in my opinion. Oh well! The way to find him is not a mechanic that was utilized in Dark Souls 1 or explained in this one except via the luck of discovering it.
Titanite becomes much easier once you end up with a vendor for it in town, which is surely very soon. They're also a common drop from an enemy you'll soon encounter.
I'm pretty sure this game has MULTIPLE stamina recovery shields. But they aren't as OP.
Oh I already found McDuff, but he just speaks gibberish at his anvil about needing a new flame. I take it he needs an Ember Item like the Blacksmiths in DS1. I've also encountered two people who teach Sorceries and Hexes but my stats are too low for them to want to talk to me about it. While my Faith is like 15 right now, my Intelligence and Attunement are both like 5, so most of the mage characters treat me like trout, except Straid, who looks down on everyone it seems.
You can't currently talk to McDuff much as interacting with him is tied to another problem you're having at the moment
Attempted the Rotten once again, unlocked the second bonfire I didn't realize was in the room. I am having serious issues with him. He hits like a truck and can generally cleave me in two, and if I'm not getting thrown around by his attacks, he's making me walk through his fire traps all over the place which also does way more damage than you would think. I try to stay close and circle him, but I have this bad tendency to get the camera "stuck" on him which makes reading his attacks very difficult since the camera decides to zoom in on me, and through him, so I can only see parts of his model which makes it hard to know when to roll.
So I dropped that and decided to go back to the Shaded Woods, and after getting a ton of my equipment destroyed in that awful Basilisk Trap in the main area, I was able to wander over and fight the Scorpion chick, who thankfully, didn't give me as hard of a time as her counterpart in DS1. This led to the Door of Pharos, where I found the boss room fairly quickly, and my bow came in handy with the normal mobs. I'm happy I went with the Dragonrider Bow since it not only does more damage than my poor shortbow, but also does magic damage, which makes it surprisingly useful against things with high physical defense. The Rat King's Authority is a bitch though. The freaking Toxic wolves are a bit of a cheap shot and I'm stuck in an awkward situation where I have to decide to sacrifice defense for speed and stamina recovery. The boss hits hard, but he would be manageable if I didn't have to worry about his toxic minions and the fact that despite having what I'm told is a fairly high adaptibility stat, chugging Estus is still criminally slow. To the point I've given up on using Estus in fights altogether cause it leaves me way too vulnerable.
If the last few areas have taught me anything though, it's that I may either need to explore and find new gear, or I'm going to have to seriously find more regular and large Titanite shards cause all my gear has only been upgraded once or twice. The Rotten might be manageable if I could do decent damage to him, whereas the Rat Authority can be dealt with by putting some more points towards Endurance and trying to stay under him. Course, I guess I should suck it up and go fight the Skeleton Lords since they are the only thing standing in my way of obtaining the only person who sells Titanite.
God I love the Skeleton Lords.
Well last night was basically me kicking ass and taking names. My stubbornness wouldn't let me drop the Rat Authority boss, and after reading a message left by another player to use blocking as well as changing my tactics up a bit, I was able to conquer this guy. Basically I had to channel my inner Demon's Souls and Bloodborne for this fight. Despite being a large mother smurfer, even a mediocre shield like mine can tank the hit if you have enough stamina, which allowed me to stay free from his swipes while I dealt with the actual annoying part of the fight which were the Toxic Minions. After that, it was basically a case of being super aggressive like in Bloodborne. Initially I kept trying to keep the Rat Authority separated by his minions but that kept getting me killed, so instead, I rushed the boss with my shield up, and took out the remaining minions, whenever they actually did reach me under his legs. He did get me once cause he had some weird toxic breath I was unaware of and not watching my health since I got too greedy, but my next attempt saw great success after double downing on my aggression.
After that, I attempted the Rotten again, and discovered another secret passage that led me to the swordwoman of Myriah, whose summon sign became available in the second bonfire area. Now that I had a companion who could deal real damage and hold aggro long enough for me to heal, I had a much easier time dealing with him and crushed him first attempt. Discovered the first DLC area, but decided to hold off since my weapon was doing tick damage at best against the enemies in the area.
So finally I tackled the Skeleton Lords, who were amusing for the sole fact that I was way overleveled for them, and opening laughed when I screwed up and took both a pyromancy ball to the face with a follow up scythe attack from another lord, only to watch maybe a fifth of my health get taken out. This coming back from two boss fights where one hit would take three quarters of my health. So I took my time and dealt with them. The skeleton minions were a nice touch, even if I still really hate the wheel skeletons, though they were not as bad as the ones from the Catacombs since there are only four of them this time, and I wasn't fighting in near complete darkness this time.
So I finally got the Stone Girl, picked up a healthy amount of stones, including the Large Titanite I desperately needed, and to kind of explain how off my stone collecting has been for this game. Once I got the Lg Titanite needed, I was able to upgrade my main weapon up to the Titanite Slab option, because I have been generously blessed with Titanite Chunks. So it's going to be interesting to see how much damage I do going from a half upgraded weapon to a mostly fully upgraded one. For those wondering, I've been using the Heide Straight Sword as my main weapon due to it's slightly greater length from regular swords, and the innate Lightning Damage it does cause it seems to me that the majority of things in this game are weak to Lightning. I have a few other weapons as well, and the whip turned out to be a real handy weapon in the Black Gulch for destroying those stupid statues. I am thinking of adding a Greatsword into the mix since that was my main weapon in DS1, but we'll see. It depends on how much upgrading has changed since it feels obvious that DS2 may be taking more of a Demon's Souls approach to weapon infusion than DS1 by keeping the blacksmiths down to two with one being basic and the other being for advanced stuff.
I'm now debating on whether I should do Harvest Valley or Tseldora? I've unlocked Shulvan I think it was called, but I'm going to leave the DLC for after I acquire all of the Old Ones Souls since they seem to be the tougher challenges and I figure if I can conquer them, I'll have a good shot at the DLC then.
The DLC is very rewarding but infinitely harder than all the rest of the game. Harvest Valley vs Tseldora is a really irrelevant decision, but personally I'd pursue the Harvest Valley path first. I would not do any of the DLC until you are at the end of the game, or perhaps have even beaten the game (unlike DS1 and BB, the game does not automatically progress to NG+ when you win).
Completed Harvest Valley and Earthen Peak, as well as beat Duke's Dear Freyja netting me my third Old One's Soul and letting me be one more soul away from accessing the end game areas.
The Medusa chick was surprisingly more difficult than I thought. I almost beat her my first try but got greedy and killed for my trouble. Sadly, I ended up losing the souls I had obtained due to an accidental poisoning, though I was likely not going to get them back anyway because I was invaded and I do terrible at PVP. I did eventually defeat her and reached the Iron Keep. Took one look at the Lava Land before me and had flashbacks of Stonefang Mines and Lost Izalith and decided I would deal with Tsedora instead.
Have I ever mentioned that I'm arachnophobic? Yeah, not a pleasant place, but I found Orifex's shop where I can get BOSS WEAPONS! Though is it me or does it seem like a majority of the Boss Weapons are spears and halberds? Frankly, I've not been too impressed with many of them besides my Dragonrider Bow, but now that I have a Compact Bow, I may switch it out since the stamina drain from using the boss one is pretty steep for a bow. For now, I'm sticking to my Heide Sword, though I may begin experimenting with Dual-Wielding if it has a power stance.
Fought the spider and conquered it after a few attempts, I'm really starting to get annoyed with all these bosses with minions or partners. It's like the devs heard everyone complain about the Capra Demon and O&S fights so much that they decided to make the majority of the bosses like them.
I need to go back and explore the rest of Tsedora since I have what I'm hoping is the key needed for the area, and I also have a few places I still wish to explore. I also got to see the conclusion of the Pate/Creighton Feud and sided with the murderous maniac.
I've also acquired the last two merchants for Majula, which is nice. Gives it that nice Nexus vibe from Demon's Souls except I feel only the starting characters in the area have any real personality with the exception of Swindling Gilligan. I'm starting to feel the complaint about the characters in this entry. While Pate and Creighton were great, and I liked Vengal (sp?) as well, a lot of the characters just kind of feel "meh". I mean I wasn't a huge fan of the characters in DS1 as well, but at least they all had some interesting narrative to follow like the Clerics and Big Hat Logan.
With that said, I'm digging Drangleic. It has an interesting Eldritch vibe to it that was lacking in DS1. The fact the layout of the world doesn't make sense, due partially to the game kind of getting retooled halfway through development, actually adds to the more horror aspects of the region. The lore is pretty good, not as cohesive as DS1 and Demon's Souls, but we are talking about a region where hundreds of kingdoms have risen and fallen over the centuries, so the lore kind of being all over the place due to it applying to different kingdoms is interesting. It's also amusing since we're seeing how far ahead in time everything is that all of the events of DS1 are now myth, but it's also neat how the four Old Ones are hinted to be reincarnations of the four main "antagonists" from DS1 as well with the clever shout outs to them. Tsedora really gives off the vibe of a derelict Duke's Archive and the dead dragon in the area was a nice touch as well.
I'm going to go talk to Manscorpion Tark, cause I've been told he has new dialogue once you beat the Duke's Pet, and I may check the wiki real fast to see what other places I can use the Branches of Yore for cause despite being a pain in my ass in terms of progressing the game due to never finding any of them, I'm now swimming in them and the Trap Keys as well. Also, I rejoined Solaire's Covenant, which made me happy cause while I don't necessarily get the hype surrounding the man, I do like him for being so out of place in the series.
Iron Keep is next. Also, is it me, or are the secondary bosses in some areas a bit... on the easy side? I mean Covetous Demon was kind of a joke despite it's object of affection giving me a hard time with her range and poison. Similarly, the one against the Lich looking dude and his followers was pretty laughable and felt more like an annoying mob fight, as opposed to weapon breaking Freyja and it's death-wielding spider children. I'm curious to know if the Iron Keep is also going to give me two boss fights with one being pathetically easy and the other being a pain in my ass?
I'm thinking of dabbling in the DLC areas once I've completed Dragon Aire and Aldia's Keep, since I've read somewhere they are some of the most challenging late game areas and feel they will get me prepared for the DLC.
So what is everyone's favorite weapon in this game? Boss weapons? Hardest boss for you? Easiest? Favorite NPC?
DS2 has a ton of easy bosses. Part of it is just the product of having sooooooooo many bosses. Covetous Demon is so easy that he's basically a meme although when he shows up for a rematch it's not quite as easy. Let me know what you think of the "secondary boss" in the Iron Keep instead, who actually challenges some people.
My favorite bosses are all DLC fights. The hardest bosses are all DLC fights. The best zones, and hardest zones, are all DLC zones.
You have not encountered my favorite NPC(s) yet, although they are not DLC.
I finished the Iron Keep, and as typical of the Souls franchise, I'm not a fan of their lava zones. Though I'll give the Iron Keep props for level design cause the main issue with Izalith was that it was kind of boring besides being filled with annoying enemies and the worst bosses in the game.
Smelter Demon was certainly a challenge, and thank god for Lucretia who is easily this games Solaire in terms of being a powerful summonable ally that can actually tank damage. Made that fight more manageable once he goes into his third phase and starts using a flame sword that can reach across the room. Funny enough, I died more times to the rematch Pursuer fight than any of the actual bosses, and I ultimately gave up on trying to beat him cause I just can't seem to get his timing down to dodge or block, and I don't really have any more Human Effigies at the moment.
I was not happy with the return of the Turtle Knights or the second coming of the Anor Londo Archers, but thankfully my fully upgraded sword wrecks most of them. As for the Old Iron King, he was pretty easy. In fact I probably died more times not looking where I was going and walking into the lava hole on the map than actually getting hurt from him. I'm chuckling to myself about the DeMocracy Video about DS2 Bosses where he basically summarized the Old Iron King as a joke with a 2 out of 10 difficulty ranking, and then followed it up by saying that the hole ranked at 10 out of 10 difficulty, "Please FROM Software, nerf it in the next patch".
I met Adlai I believe, which was interesting, and I lit the first bonfire in the new DLC area like I did with the other one. The area is gorgeous by the way, finally a zone on par with Anor Londo or the Painted World in terms of excellent visual design. Now that I have the Four Old Ones, I'll be heading towards the new areas. I may do a little co-op before that just to regain my humanity and to build up my covenant some more since I'm working on a Strength/Faith build for this run, and I read that while my main weapon can't use items to boost it's elemental powers, it does get bonus from the Sunlight Sword Miracle. Considering how many things are weak to Lightning in this game, it feels like a good build to work towards.
Didn't get quite as much done last night as I would have liked. I tried to get a co-op battle going to restore my humanity, but I'm very likely way above the normal Soul Memory Level for the areas I have access to. So instead, I spent my evening trying to "Git Gud" with the Pursuer fight, and while the SOB gave me trout for Souls, I was very surprised and happy to get an upgraded Ring of Blades from him instead.
Other than that, I spent my time exploring the Iron Keep a bit more and was able to find the Dull Ember which unlocked McDuff as a Blacksmith. I was unable to get any of the Chests/Items on the Lava Stones due to having absolute crap for Fire Defense since Intelligence and Attunement are my two most neglected stats. I was hoping there was a ring or something like in DS1 to walk on Lava, but apparently there is not.
After that, I went to the Winter Shrine, unlocked the final DLC area and the one I'm kind of excited for the most, and then proceeded to Drangleic Castle. Aesthetically speaking? Cool place, and I love the ghost minister NPC, interesting twist. Enemy wise? smurf all the living statues and the game making the stupid Knight Bosses from the Lost Bastille into regular enemies. I discovered an easy, if long winded means to eliminate all of them in that one chamber, but my god was it a pain. I think I either need to switch up my Armor, or more likely, I need to level it up a bit. I did meet Nashandra and her stupid Cursed Picture, I imagine I've got to deal with her in the future. I reached the first boss gate and decided to call it a night.
You can become incredibly lava-resistant by rolling through pots that are full of water, or dousing yourself by standing in water. This is how almost all the lava items are reached.
When you go to warp between bonfires, there is a small (easy to miss if you aren't looking for it, impossible if you are) orange border around areas with "high player activity" for your Soul Memory.
There are also a few PvP zones: The tower with the bellkeepers, for instance. And the bridge at the start of the Iron Keep is the game's long-standing PvP Duel Area although there aren't really dueler types at every Soul Memory.
The Winter DLC is my least favorite one, but it does have the coolest final boss.
So after a few missteps with the dual Dragonrider gank, and learning that one of them was laughably weak to my weapon, I conquered them and explored the rest of the castle. Thankfully, the rest of the castle is a lot less annoying than the early sections, especially the room with the living statues and the freaking Sentry Knight Bosses. I'm going to forever associate those bosses with how many gank fights there are in this game since they seem to pop up in the areas that have the worst examples of them.
Speaking of them, I forgot to explore the room properly and backtrack to them, where I discovered this old man babbling on about the Dark like Kaathe from DS1 and I also discovered the Farrom Set (sp?) which for those who don't know, is the armor set used in all of the promotional materials. Being the basic bitch that I am, it's my new armor at the moment, and frankly, with a few upgrades, it is actually better than what I was using with the exception of my helmet. Still the armor looks cooler than my weird animal headress knight with flashy Michael Jackson pants, so I'm probably going to stick to this set for awhile. I did find a decent medium shield with 100% physical reduction I may also switch to once I upgrade it a bit.
I fought the Looking Glass Knight and defeated him, but not without losing Jugo in the process and thus ending both his quest line and the ability to get his gear. So, I'm kind of annoyed by that, but it wasn't like I didn't screw up with the Siegmeyer quest in DS1 and accidentally let Boris of the Twin Fangs die in Demon's Souls either... I am pretty bad about keeping jolly "Big Guys" alive in these games it seems. It actually surprised me too, cause the Glass Knight spent most of the fight wailing on me up until he summoned an ally who went for Jugo before I back-stabbed him to death. After that, Jugo became the primary target and if Jugo and I didn't have half our attacks land on his stupidly huge ass shield, I probably would have finished him off before Jugo died. At east I still have Lucretia.
I've reached the Shrine of Amana and called it knight. I probably would have gotten more done, but I wanted to do some more Co-Op cuse I've done very little in this game and I'm still miffed I was denied in Bloodborne and will likely be denied in Dark Souls 3 as well for the same dumb reason. Yet, I am having a seriously hard time getting this going for me. I'm not sure if I'm too overleveled in Soul Memory, or if there isn't as many new players for this entry and all the action is going down in NG+, or if it's just something I didn't even think of, but I wanted to level up the Heirs of the Sun covenant and no one wants my help. I get invaded enough times to know it's not my online service, though I did have one poor soul try to summon me for the Rotten and my connection kept getting lost and disconnecting us. I'm not even a huge fan of multiplayer shenanigans but I like Dark Souls treatment of the medium and some of my favorite memories of Dark Souls was camping out in front of the Capra Demon Boos room and helping players even the odds against that cheap smurf. So I'm a little annoyed that I've wasted two evenings for some "jolly cooperation" that never happened.
I'm not exactly looking forward to the Shrine of Amana, it's reputation proceeds it, and it sounds like it's DS2's version of New Londo where ambushes and falling to your death are the norm cause everything is underwater. Have I mentioned how much I disliked New Londo? At least before I finally got a ghost to drop the weapons they are weak to so I didn't have to worry about using that consumable to hurt them.
Speaking of consumables, I feel the one thing I'm going to give this game props for is having merchants in your hub area that actually sell upgrade materials for your gear. You got some in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, but they often involved traveling to specific locations and even then they only sold the most basic of upgrade material. Having easy access to Basic and Large Titanite, and in close proximity to the blacksmith has been a nice surprise. In fact, the only truly disappointing merchants have been the magic based ones, as many of their skills feel a bit too basic and I've honestly found most of their wares just traveling. Not a bad thing for me, since I still lack enough levels in Attunement to even equip magic, but it does seem to me like the selection is a bit too basic and you'll get your money's worth buying from all the others merchants.
Completed the Shrine of Amana tonight. Not quite as bad as I heard, but maybe it was because I was extra cautious and went into sniper mode for most of the place. I'll give it props for being one of the most gorgeous places in the game so far, though Dragnleic Castle and the Iron Keep were no slouches either in that department. My favorite thing about the place is the Song of the Milfanito, because it's basically an remixed version of Return to Slumber, the ending theme to the Seal the Great Old One Ending in Demon's Souls.
Either way, it's a pretty good track overall. The boss of the area wasn't too bad, which was nice considering the slog getting to him. I also find it amusing that the Hollows in this area drop Human Effigies considering they've mutated to the point where they don't even look human anymore. Also the Archdrake Uniforms look like the Choir Uniforms from Bloodborne. Just about gave me a heart attack when the first one rushed me right as you leave the tower area. I had flashbacks of Bergynworth and that nightmare of a Hunter duel where you get to experience A Call from Beyond for the first time.
I also used that Embbedded Key to free the one Milifanito, but curious to know if that "key" would have made a good weapon or not? Either way, this place did make me super happy I didn't drop off any of the shields I got from the living statue enemies, those shields have pretty incredible elemental and magic resistance, which made this area a hell of a lot easier to deal with.
I think I also realize why I have not been able to get any co-op going for me. I checked my player data and realized I have a Soul Memory close to Two Million at this point, which from what I gather is actually pretty high for my part of the game as it seems like that something closer to end game. So I guess I'm not going to get anything done for the Heirs of the Sun Covenant. :cry: At least not until the DLC most likely. :roll2
Undead Crypt is next, any tidbits or advice before I go in?
Okay, the Undead Crypt is the DS2's answer for New Londo, though honestly, the ghost enemies in this area are nowhere near as BS as the ones from DS1's "hey we've got mid range attacks, and can hide and attack through walls which you can't. Did we mention you need a special item and\or weapon to even hurt us and we can attack from any direction including above and below? Have fun.".
It's also nice to see we're three games into the franchise and the team is still playing lip service to Vinland from Demon's Souls. First Havel, and now Velstadt with the whole Paladin with an impossibly cool hammer and armor set that lets him tank anything your throw at him. Makes me happy since Vinland was a favorite character of mine in that game.
Also, the whole bell gimmick of the dungeon was annoying until I discovered the ghosts only spawn if their tombs are intact and the tombs will not respawn even if you use a bonfire once destroyed. I kind of miss this element from DS1, where they would throw a nasty curve ball at you, but make it a one game deal where the threat never respawns until NG+.
So after meeting the former king and swiping his ring while he was busy pacing through his room trying to remember what he got up to a century ago that involved him Hollowing and stripping down to a loincloth, I backtracked to the Forest of Giants to open the one door that needed his ring, and also dealt with the Salamanders and collected all of that loot I missed on my first venture. Found a third dead giant tree, and called it a night. I'll hit up the door in Drangleic Castle next. I'm guessing the Door in the Shaded Woods is the one I need to access the next area?
I know I'm not far from the end, which means I'll probably tackle the DLC soon. Any suggestions on what order to do them in?
I'd probably do Shulva->Iron->Winter
I'm excited for you to try the Challenge Paths on these things and get So Mad that they'd even add such a stupid and infuriating thing to the game. It always pleases me.
Oh I've heard. Not helped that I believe all three paths wind up with the extra bosses who are all really phoned in. I've heard the DLC is like 2/3rds awesomesauce and one-third "why did you bother?". So you suggest I do them in order of release?Quote:
Originally Posted by Spuuky
If that's the release order. I forget, though. It doesn't ultimately matter but the end of the city of ice felt like the most "final" confrontation to me aesthetically.
The challenge paths don't all end in phoned-in bosses. The last one certainly doesn't.
I'll have to see I guess.
So in update news, I used the King's Ring to reach The Throne of Want, and had a very unpleasant encounter with the game's attempts to recreate the Ornstein and Smough fight from DS1. After that, I laid down my summon sign and actually got to do some "Jolly Cooperation" except I either had a situation where the summoner got killed in the fight or I did, because apparently this is where the final boss battles take place and that what every fight was. We took down Nashandra with the first group, but then the summoner kept getting killed against Aldia, except for this one fight where we had him down to nothing and just as I had backed away to take some Estus to heal, the boss decided then to target me with his homing fireball. I assume the team succeeded in winning cause up until then the summoner kept re-summoning me, but the last time I got summoned was a new guy fighting Nashandra and got a bit too cocky and took her scythe to the face which knocked off a good chunk of my health, and silly old me didn't have any healing items in my item hotkey, and so curse killed me before I could heal.
After that, I got tired of waiting for summons and decided to check out the final door which led me to Aldia's Keep. So far, except for being filled with some monsters I don't particularly care for. I did reach the first fog gate for the boss, but wasn't feeling up to it. I did raise my attunement high enough to get a spell, but I still need the particular spell I want, so right now it's a basic healing spell. Though, when I went to talk to my Miracle Cleric in Majula, the game informed that a Cracked Eye Orb was resonating. I am well aware that she's been the red phantom popping up in the last few areas, but didn't feel like pursuing it, on account of the sheer amount of bloodstain in her room. So yes, awkward evening overall.
Got quite a bit done tonight.
Met the imprisoned sorcerer who is this game's version of Yurt or Lautric, though I feel it's safer to say he's a cool shout out to Mephistopheles from Demon's Souls since he can contract out his assassinations to you. Made more amusing in that you can actually acquire all the items needed without killing his targets as I already had the first two target's items when I met him, and before the day was done, I acquired the last two.
The dragon at Aldia's Keep was a pretty cool fight when the camera cooperated at least. The Dragon Arie was pretty cool, though I'm sure I missed a ton of stuff going through there. The Dragon Shrine was surprisingly annoying despite being so short. I've heard you can fight the Dragon NPC there, but considering how huge he is and the sheer amount of bloodstains I saw around him, I may leave that for another day.
I was kind of stuck at this point, and had to look up where to go next, so I checked out the Giant's Memories around the Forest of Giants, which was a pretty cool idea. Kind of hated the march up to the Giant's King since I kept getting two shotted with being hit with a bombardment only to get hit with the bosses air slash move. I collected the three Gian't Souls and the Giant's Kinship. I even grabbed the fourth one in Black Gulch as well and the key to finally join the Darklurker Covenant, but again, I'm debating about it.
As of right now, I can go and beat the game and get the original vanilla endings, I can take out Vendrick and open up the opportunity to fight the new final boss and get the new ending, I can finish up the vanilla game by taking on the optional bosses from there, or I can start the DLC. I'm probably going to not bother with just going straight to the end and will either deal with the few lingering quests and bosses left in the main game, or I'll start the DLC, likely the DLC as I'm not really in the mood to fight a dragon that can apparently one shot me with any of his attacks. That and I don't quite want to drop my covenant since I have not been able to really rank it up, and I figure the DLC will help me there. Any suggestions?
Before I do go further, I would like to say that I feel the second half of the game has been much more enjoyable than the first half. Maybe it's because none of the starting areas really grabbed me like some of the final areas, or maybe I felt the opening was a little too directionless for my taste compared to the tighter narrative of the second half, but it's amusing how this is like the opposite of DS1 for me.
Played a little last night.
I'm beginning to think I should stop trying to do "jolly cooperation". I got a few more summons last night for the Nashandra fight and pretty much just embarrassed myself with my awful skills at this game. My favorite was rolling away from Nashandra but forgetting to remove the Lock On so I didn't notice I rolled off a cliff to my death about 15 seconds into the fight. The other death was a fight going well where I kept trying to control her aggro from the summoner and learned the hard way that she has an AoE attack to deal with players who like to hug her too much and while my Dark Defense is okay from an armor standpoint, not stat wise and so it killed me. I should be grateful my PS3 started having issues with staying online so I couldn't be summon anymore.
Checked out the first DLC instead. Shulven (sp?) has been interesting so far, I tried hard to fight my way through, only to discover the switches that make the platforms move around. Turns out you can use these switches to either kill some of the enemies or minimize the usefulness of the archers so you can sneak close to them and kill them that way. I did have a nasty time with the Ghost Knights in the Dragon Shrine until I learned you can attack their crypts to lower their defense and make them susceptible to back attacks.
I'm digging the cinematic moments with the dragon swooping around and causing some damage. I always love these bits in the series so it's been nice. The more puzzle aspect has also been really appreciated.
Okay, so after spending some time in the Sunken Kingdom, I've found the Cave of the Dead, which I'm assuming is the "hardcore optional zone" since it doesn't appear to have any lore implications. Honestly, it's not that bad, and is thankfully short. It really feels like what Black Gulch should have been like to be honest. It also helps that I have the rings to protect me from all of the Petrift effects going around. Not a bad area actually. The boss fight has been giving me issues but I kind of like the dynamic of it. Sure it's just a lazy PVP fight with three themed Invaders using legacy sets from the series lore, but at least they're all unique and the boss map adds some cool dynamics to the fight than some of the gank fights this game has thrown at the player. So overall, it's been pretty fun, but I still need to "Git Gud".
Attachment 75050
Definitely the easiest of the three Challenge Paths. By an enormous margin. Good luck with the next DLC, wherein you get my vote for the hardest runback in Souls and (thank god not on the same boss) the hardest boss in Souls.
So, quite a bit happened today.
I finished the Sunken City DLC. Took down the Squalor Queen and only had to fight the Velstadt clone twice before she finally went down. Sihn proved to be significantly easier and I appreciated the fact he was almost in the next room to her cause I'm not sure if I was ready to deal with more of the tanky Drakeblood Knights. Overall, it was a pretty great DLC as the dungeon layout was fun and enemies were tricky but pretty fair, even if the Cave of the Dead largely felt like a more well thought out redux of Black Gulch. Overall pretty awesome and I loved the lore.
After that, I went back to the Undead Crypt to talk to Vendrick, and I tend to drop my summon sign whenever I backtrack. I was honestly surprised when I got summoned though as I figured my Soul Memory was too high for this part of the game. Ended up meeting a player who is more reckless than myself, though I get the impression he may be doing a challenge run due to his clothing option which was mostly naked and I think he was using a whip. Anyway, I dropped my summon sign before the hallway where Velstadt is fought, and as anyone who has played the game knows, there are a quite a few obstacles to reach Vendrick. My first attempt to help him ended in utter failure cause the guy decided to YOLO his way to the boss room, leaving me with a bunch of knights and ghosts to contend with before I assume Velstadt one-shotted him and I was sent back to my merry way. I dropped my summon sign again just to see if I could help him again, and sure enough, I got summoned along with another player to try and help him. This time however, the guy ended up getting invaded by another player and in addition to dealing with the usual riff raff of the room, I had a nasty spear using mage to contend with. Course I don't think he expected to be dealing with three players. I was finally able to chase his sorry ass down to the back of the room and finally killed the invader, which got me much praise form the other two players. Then my host ran into the boss room while I was healing and got killed. I decided to spend my time elsewhere.
So I jumped into the the Iron King DLC and traveled to Brume Tower. I picked up some Smelter Wedges and saved them cause I was told I would need them for the area boss fight. For the most part, the area is a bit easier than the Sunken Crown, partly due to having more soul levels and partly cause nothing resists my lightning weapon in this place. Overall, it's a pretty cool place and felt like an extension of the Iron Keep, which is one of my favorite locations so far in the vanilla game. I did the optional hardcore area as well and... it can go smurf itself. It's frankly a nice representation of the issues I do have with this game at times. It's a boring rehash dungeon of the Cave of the Dead with slightly different gimmick (there are two paths now!) and it ends with a reskinned boss, but whereas the Cave of the Dead was kind of an interesting melee with a pseudo PVP type match against popular builds in the series, Smelter Demon is basically the new Asylum Demon where we're just going to change the color, make him do a different elemental damage and jack up his health. The prize for beating him isn't even great to be honest. I ended up just running to the boss cause trying to fight all of the ganky fights in this area is a chore and the last room before the boss room is the worst.
So with that, I reached the bottom of the Tower, and barring that last hallway with all of the animated armors and having to fall through the floor, I managed to reach the bonfire and use the wedges on the human bonfires so the boss doesn't heal. I met Fume Knight, and he certainly lives up to his name as one of the game's toughest boss. His first phase is hectic, but manageable. His second phase is a nightmare and he can easily end me with two attacks. Despite the difficulty, he reminds me of the Artorias fight, where he's actually pretty fun, so dying to him isn't so frustrating and it helps the bonfire is just around the corner to his boss room. Though I am now starting to dislike the "lost health when you die" mechanic of the game cause it's making the fight more grueling than it needs to be and I don't like wasting Human Effigies. Also, unlike a few other boss battles in this game, I'm not using a summon for help as I've been told that Fume Knight becomes an utter nightmare to deal with if he gets the defense boosts from having fellow players, so this will really be like Artorias all over again. Now if I can just figure out how to boost my fire and dark defense without using up a valuable ring slot.
Nice, I need to complete ds2. I got to get the DLC first though which is so exciting. After I am definitely going to give demon souls a try! Dark souls 3 will have to wait until we can get a ps4 :/
So it's been an interesting few nights.
The previous night, I attempted Fume Knight a few more times and got totally wrecked. Decided I was going to reagin my humanty the old fashioned way through "jolly cooperation" and went to the final area to wait to get summoned. The difference is that I left my summon sign by the bonfire nearby rather than the boss door. I ended up getting summoned by a guy named tanuki_bros. who is decked out in the Catarina Armor set and what followed was what I could only imagine is what following around Siegmeyer would be like. Not sure if he's been touting the bonfire ascetics or I just happened to get summoned into a NG+ world (probably the former) but I was helping along with two other guys fight off red phantoms, and gank Pursuer fight, and a few of the area bosses and getting wrecked by the stronger enemies, but I kept helping him and the guy actually sent me a friend request on PSN so we're now Dark Souls Bros I guess. Despite dying a smurf ton, it was actually pretty funny and it certainly caused me to step up my game in order to help him. Got a few soul levels and weapon upgrades while I was at it as well.
So that was last night, tonight, I largely dueled with Fume Knight and after expending all my human effigies and a few trips to that special shrine n Amana where you can pray for humanity to come back, I finally took him down. It took three changes in my strategy. I switched out my Heide Sword +!0 for the Drakeblood Greatsword, which I upgraded to it's +5 version in order to get a sizeable boost to my attack power without throwing off my weight. It helped that the weapons moveset isn't far off from the Gwyn's Drakknight Greatsword from DS1 which was my main weapon for a good chunk of that game. I also switched up my armor for something lighter. He was two shotting me with his heavy sword anyway so I figured defense wasn't going to help me and instead focused on stamina recovery. This helped considerably. My final element was changing up my strategy for the fight and having to learn to dodge towards him, not away from him. His hitboxes almost guaranteed that trying to get away from him would make the attack land, not to mention his increased range in his second phase. The other element was that you need to stick to him like a tick in the first phase to avoid most of his attacks, but it's actually better to keep your distance during his second phase cause his two charged up fire attacks are easier to dodge if you're not on top of him. It took some getting use to but, I eventually got the pattern down and played conservatively in the second phase and finally conquered the guy who is considered to be the hardest boss in the game solo, so I'm feeling quite satisfied and he's so far the "Artoriaa" of the DLC for me in terms of being an awesome fight.
The rest of my evening was spent hunting down Smelter Wedges and taking down the rest of the Ashen Idols all over the place. Holy crap is she a pain in the ass, especially in the areas where she inflicts curse damage and their usually inhabited by those obnoxious floating armors. Got invaded a few times for my trouble as well but at least I found the last bonfire and the entrance to the final bosses area for this DLC. It's a tough call as to which DLC area is the best so far for me, and I still have the Ivory King DLC to look forward to as well. I might edge it towards Sunken King just because I liked all of the areas for the most part, whereas as I was not a happy camper with that awful tunnel and the rematch Smelter Demon fight at the end in the Iron King DLC. Whereas Sunken Kingdom's optional areas was slightly less obnoxious and had a more fun boss battle at the end.
After I finish the DLC, I'll probably take on the Ancient Dragon and Vendrick before finishing the game. I also still need to join the Dark Covenant, cause I've heard there is a boss at the end of that one as well.
No other boss has embarrassed me nearly as many times as that STUPID Fume Knight. One random trick that some people use is that if you enter the fight with certain gear on (for lore reasons) he immediately goes straight to phase 2 at full health - while phase 2 is "harder" it leaves you with only one sequence to learn.
This DLC's final boss is also really great. What a great DLC, all three of them really.
The Dark covenant boss was actually probably the boss I died to the second most times in the game; although that almost certainly was a stylistic issue and the fact that I fought him WAY earlier, more than that he's THAT tough.
I don't get it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
The first guy in armor is the Pursuer, a recurring boss with a simple moveset but higher stats than what is normal in the early game. He tends to pop up in old boss rooms and he's the bane of a lot of new players, hence the first image in NG. By New Game + You're character is so overleveled and experienced that you'll start wondering why you were afraid of him the first time around. Hence the second image. The new armored knight in the final panel is the Fume Knight from the DLC who is considered to be the hardest boss in the entire game including all of the DLC expansions, so he makes even a NG+ Player and Pursuer looks like scrubs in comparison. Which he does rather soundly I might add as I'm sure I've died to him more times than any boss so far in the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkybladeI don't get it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
In update news:
I beat Sir Alonne and completed the Old Iron King DLC. Even met and helped another player take him down. While his moveset was simpler than Fume Knight's, he makes up for it by being faster and a bit more relentless making stamina recovery a major task. The lead up to him is not fun either, but a walk in the park compared to the trout hole that leads up to the rematch Smelter Demon fight. A nice message left from another player allowed me to find the last Smelter Wedge and I was finally able to get rid of all of the Ashen Idols and claim Nadia's soul.
Tried some more co-op in Drangleic Castle and discovered that you can't really get help for the Dragon Rider Gank fight or rematch Pursuer battle in their boss room as it's apparently "not in the same area as the first bonfire" so I've had a few times a player grabs me for these fights and I end up getting sent away as they challenge the boss. Spoke to Vendrick as well for my next set of dialogue from him.
Started the Ivory King DLC and the enemies are a bit of a step up. Whereas the Old Iron DLC either hid away the nastier enemies deeper in the level or had the Ashen Idols buff up the regular enemies to problematic territory, this place brings out some tougher enemies from the onset and just gets a bit more hectic from there, especially when you find the Eyes of the Priestess and all those praying women turn out to be Soul Spear casting pains in my ass. The fact they have invisible soldiers wandering around the blizzard isn't fun either. The biggest issue of the place for me is the size, it is easy to get lost and it looks like I'm going to have to switch over to pyromancy to get some of the chests opened.
On the plus size, the first NPC Invader in the area was actually pretty clever. I had heard they stopped up their A.I. to make them feel like human players with several of them using gestures before attacking but this guy did something that finally justified my general paranoia in these games concerning certain OCD ticks I have. I'll leave this as a surprise for anyone who hasn't played it yet, but I'm sure veterans know what I'm talking about. I have not ran into the first area boss, nor have I found the challenge area yet, though I've heard the challenge area is one of the most reviled of all the DLC. We'll see what happens. I also apparently picked up Artorias' Sword, though it goes by another name in this entry.
That challenge area is the worst smurfing zone in any Souls game.
Not much advancement tonight. I did a little co-op, but nothing fruitful because the other players either entered boss zones outside of the summonable area, or in one case, the guy had us clear a room for him before banishing us back to our worlds. :mad2:
While it took freaking forever to finally start having the co-op element kick in for this game, I will give it props for having more cordial invaders. Outside of one jackass I encountered early in the game, most of the invaders I've encountered are just guys in it for some fun PVP and tend to seek you out, greet you from a distance and then go for the kill, and while I lose nine out of ten times, I'll take this friendly invasion over the BS in DS1 where invaders made certain zones a virtual nightmare for me cause the guys basically hid around the level to snipe me or sneak attack while I was trying to complete it. I think I would have loved Sen's Fortress and the Painted World more if I didn't have to worry about using Humanity cause it meant I would be invaded all the freaking time in those places. I think helping things out is the Red Soapstone which allows invaders to ask you if you want to be invaded.
This sort of brings me back to the one thought I felt about the PVP elements of this series, which is that they have it backwards. Instead of making invaders only show up in locations where the other player hasn't beaten the boss. It would make more sense to me to have the invaders only be able to invade worlds where the bosses have already been beaten. Partly cause it's frustrating to try to finish an area and prep for the boss only to have to change your plans cause some jackass showed up to ruin your day; and partly because it would actually make backtracking to older areas more exciting. I mean traveling through the Forest of Giants with my over-leveled character to grab some item I missed is kind of tedious, but would be exciting if I knew there was a chance the zone would be filled with invaders. It would make backtracking more interesting since you could still have a real challenge. DS2 certainly mixes this up since it introduces the Red Soapstone and bonfire ascetics, but I feel the PVP community would prefer this set-up since it would mean the chance to invade more players, have a much better diversity of zones to play in, and would mean they are going to be challenging an opponent who has already proven they can beat the area as opposed to maybe running into a less skilled player. Griefers may hate this set-up, but I kind of like the idea.
Onto actual news, I spent most of the evening playing around with covenants. I'm having bad luck with the Heirs of Sun covenant cause I'm either only able to be summoned in endgame zones, my host dies, or I keep getting sent away before boss battles for one reason or another; not to mention my own success rate with some bosses isn't perfect. So, I picked up the Sentinels of Blue or whatever and finally learned the missing gesture I needed for the gesture trophy, and then realized I still hadn't opened that stupid hidden door in the Black Gulch. Did that, and met the old man a third time and joined the Pilgrims of the Dark, and gained access to the side quest to unlock one of the other hidden bosses of the game. I also explored the Dragon Shrine some more and debated about fighting the dragon there and found the petrified egg needed to join the dragon covenant.
Also, is there anyway to unfreeze all the frozen treasures in the Ivory Crown DLC? I still haven't fought the first boss, but I tried pyromancy and that did nothing. I need to get back to finishing it up I guess. I did find the item that makes the invisible knights visible, so that was nice.
There would be way fewer invasions in your PvP system. I very rarely spend time in zones I'm done with (by which I mean having beaten the boss, which I do last). I would guess people spend way more time in zones pre-boss than post-boss.
You just aren't far enough in the DLC to melt the ice.
Yeah, but if PVP was left for after bosses, then you would actually have a reason to go back to places. Instead most of the invaders stick to end game zones or places like the Painted World where the boss can be skipped, having it be post would actually give the players who like PVP a place to go and do so, and the people who would rather never bother with it can freely ignore it.
I backtrack a lot, but part of that is because I rush to the bosses so I can end invasions quickly and the other is because some zones are just fun. Afterwards I comb over an area to grab all the items and events I missed, but it would be nice to be able to enjoy areas on the first go around instead of feeling the need to find the boss ASAP cause XxXdiptrout637XxX and his cronies like to invade you while you're still trying to figure out the area. As I said, there are still some zones in DS1 and 2 I'm still salty about cause they were tough and compounded by being invasion hotbeds that raised the frustration factor more than I would care for. If you like PVP, then I don't see how the idea I suggested would really change it for them. It would largely just stick it to the Griefers.
Artorias and the Fume Knight are two of my favorite bosses in this series, which is kind of hilariously ironic because they both force me to play opposite my usual playstyle (I'm very turtly) and they both took me upwards of 20 tries to beat. As I wrote in my game diary, but then never posted anywhere: Contrary to just about any other boss, where losing more than 3-4 times was irritating, when I repeatedly lost against these two it wasn't frustrating--because I could feel myself becoming just that tiny bit better each time.
Artorias I kind of just wore down with my Great Scythe and a ton of kiting, only attacking when I was sure I had time to get a hit in, and even on that winning run, I nearly died a few times because I just couldn't shake off my turtly ways. With the Fume Knight, a couple of tries in, I discovered summoning help was a very bad idea, then a little later had another epiphany where I realized it was neither stage 1 nor stage 2 per se, but the switch between them that was getting me. Started wearing that special helmet that forced him into stage 2 from the beginning, and (after many attempts) took him down with the Craftsman's Hammer. (Went through most of the game with that hammer, but in this battle I don't recommend it; the range is so short and the battle so fast that I kept whiffing.) My winning attempt I was far more aggressive than any prior, almost not even using a shield, dodging instead of trying to block, and attacking every time I had an opening. I had one or two close calls, but overall, though it took about the same number of attempts, he went down easier than Artorias. (Though the difference likely lies in my increased experience, rather than actual difficulty.)
On another note, I just got Dark Souls 3 from the current Humble Monthly, and my computer is nowhere near the minimum specs, but it still runs. XD I've got an AMD A6-3620 APU with a 6530D graphics chip. For quick reference, it's a 2.2Ghz quad-core CPU and an integrated "GPU" with 512MB memory. Miraculously, DS3 is playable, but I've got it at 800x450 with the lowest settings possible, and I still get booted offline due to FPS sometimes. On my end, it's a bit jittery but not choppy, and there doesn't seem to be any input lag, but I'm only just past the first area so time will tell. My biggest problem so far is trying to read the tiny text. XD
I'm apparently pretty tolerant for a Dark Souls player. I didn't mind Blighttown. I didn't mind the Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith. I didn't mind the Shrine of Amana or the Iron Keep or most of the areas people tend to hate. I didn't like the Black Gulch and hated the Tomb of Giants, but neither even begin to compare with my loathing for that challenge area in the Ivory King DLC. It's not even the environment I hate, though it adds insult to injury; it's the enemies. I seriously camped there for literal hours to deliberately despawn each and every one, partly to make my wanderings easier but also because those things shouldn't be allowed to exist. And to add more insult to injury, they actually have a pretty neat design. Would probably really like them if fighting them wasn't such a pain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
(In other words, I sincerely wish you good luck and highly recommend summoning any available NPCs to take aggro while you rush the boss fog. If anybody survives to follow you in, they'll help with the boss too.)
Weird night.
Helped a player fight off the twin Pursuer duel and then got killed in the Nashandra fight by being too greedy and her curse damage knocked enough of my health down for her AoE attack to finish me and the guys other summon off.
Remembered that the room with all the living statues had one of the Pilgrim of the Dark areas, but instead opted to start with the one in the Black Gulch cause it's way more annoying to reach. Ended up completing that zone and the one in the Faded Woods, as well as light their torches. Luckily wasn't hit with any Player Invaders but I imagine that will change in the last area since it's a high level zone.
Opted to not to finish that quest-line and instead tackled Aava and took him down rather easily. He's powerful but his attacks miss more than I thought they would. Met the Priestess and finally melted all of the snow. Now, being the idiot that I am, I ventured back into the city to collect the knights she was talking about, as well as grab all those treasures I was denied. Ended up finding an elevator and reached this place with an NPC Invader, some ice hedgehogs, and some nasty Ice Wizards. Cleared out everything and was sitting on close to 85,000 Souls but I was really hoping to find the optional area and a bonfire. Met this odd White Phantom, who never attacked me and even used gestures. Kind was paranoid around him but against my better judgment likely due to my low supplies of healing items, I ignored him and found this lever. About the time I used it, this phantom back stabbed me and killed me in one shot. Kicked myself for being stupid. Went back to collect my souls but missed with one of my arrows and watched as one of the ice hedgehogs murdered me...
Was going to call it a night when one of the guys I friended during some of the help I got in the Old Iron King DLC messaged me and asked if I could help him with Elena. So I went and helped him take down the Squalor Queen and was getting ready to help him with Sihn when my PS3 started to lose contact with my internet (my internet is pretty awful in my area unfortunately) and kept getting shot into offline mode. Figured this was a sign to call it a night and here I am telling my exploits.
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For the most part, there are only a few zones I really dislike in the series so far.
Demon's Souls - The Valley of Defilement, easily the most obnoxious poisonous swamp area in the series for me. Like I don't know why people even complain about Blighttown or the Gutter cause neither have anything on that place.
Dark Souls - Sen's Fortress sucked cause I don't really tank damage and prefer to roll my way through situations and overwhelm opponents, so tight corridors with strong enemies with high poise are the bane of my existence. I also disliked New Londo before you unflood it. Largely cause I find the Ghost enemies to be one of the few really unfair opponents in the game, especially if you were like me and were unfortunate enough to get cursed super early in the game and had to try and venture through there early to get uncursed. I'm still salty about it.
For Dark Souls 2, the only area I really hate in the main game so far has been the Black Gulch cause that whole zone is designed for maximum frustration and even at higher levels that can easily deal with most of the stuff it throws at you, it's still a chore to get through. Of the DLC, I can so far agree with the general consensus of the fanbase and say the "Optional Hardcore Zones" have all been the weakest if not the most frustrating parts of the DLC. I died over a dozen times trying to beat each of those zones but it was never fun and I'm usually sighing with relief when the boss gets taken out, and I'm actually fine with not going back through them to get every item. With that said, I died about the same amount of times trying to take down Fume Knight and Alonne and had a blast in both cases despite that, though I could have down without the lead up to Alonne. My main issue with areas in DS2 so far is that I often feel more "meh" about them than I feel I should.
Sadly, much like Dark Souls and Bloodborne, the DLC has been of such excellent quality in terms of dungeon design and bosses that the main entry has tough competition in terms of my favorite places and boss battles, and it's kind of hard to remember any of them cause the DLC is so good at eclipsing all of it.
My eight year old is finally done with the Abyss DLC ( I still got to beat Manus then the dragon)he was hesitant about Kalameet but he went ahead and defeated the dragon on his first run. He also saved Sif because he wanted the other cut scene. All I goy to say is he got gud lol
Not a big update tonight:
So my evening began with helping a friend I had made through the game with the Cave of the Dead, which considering how short it was and my own experience, I felt like a freaking super star for once being able to slam in there and take out all the cronies left and right. Even took down two of the three Gank Squad bosses by myself.
After that, I tried my hand with the third Cave of Dark for the Pilgrims of Dark Covenant and kept dying stupid deaths thanks to all of the freaking bottomless pits. I ran out of human effigies and decided to just focus on the Ivory King DLC.
I was able to reach my first Knight to help me with the boss, but not before a lot of trial and error. The enemies in this DLC are tanky as hell and I had to use a few Repair Powders and most of my arrows just to make it back to one of the bonfires in one piece. I've also decided that along with the Ice Hedgehogs, my new least favorite enemy type in this area is the re-imagined Crystal Giants from the Duke's Archive. You know except now they are ice based, have much better speed, which was like their only weakness in the original. Still high poise, still lots of damage. I also lit some torches that led to a cavern with a bunch of those backstab happy priestesses and decided to play it safe and just call it a night at this point. I'm still looking for the optional zone cause I usually try to complete it before the final story boss battle if I can if not first, but this one seems really well hidden for some reason.
So I finally tackled Darklurker, using the Drangleic Portal cause it's surprisingly the easiest one once you know what you're doing. Not too bad of a fight, took him down on my second attempt. He was a surprisingly fun fight, and was a well done boss overall despite the fact that I was probably way over-leveled for him. Pilgrims of the Dark are currently the only Covenant I've completed at the moment, and I'm now back to Heirs of the Sun, though this Covenant seems to be cursed for me, as I'm having a hard time getting successful co-ops going here and I seem to more often than not, get summoned to help a player farm souls in a tough section before getting sent away without actually fighting a boss.
Finally got the key to access the optional zone in Ivory King DLC, and was pleasantly surprised that it's not quite as bad as people make it out to be. The Lightning Reindeer are certainly a handful but manageable, and the gimmick of the zone is actually clever and has more thought put into it than the other two optional zones. The same cannot be said for the boss fight, which got me clobbered pretty badly, especially since my primary weapon was at it's breaking point by the time I reached them and I had to switch to a weaker one. The fight is also one of the worst of the DLC IMHO. Largely cause it's a reskin of a fight from this very DLC and to "mix it up" they made it into a another gank fight which is sort of a major symptom of some of the design problems DSII suffers from.
As for the rest of the Ivory King DLC, I'm still trying to hunt down the rest of the Knights, but have only found one so far and I've completed everything up to the "third bonfire" which takes place before the NPC Invader. I've noticed there is a slot for a fifth bonfire, but have no idea where it is.
I plan on focusing on beating the optional zone first before proceeding with the main DLC quest cause I want this to end on a high note and so far, finishing the optional zones early is a good way of doing that. Afterwards, I want to beat the Ancient Dragon, then Vendrick, then finish the game. Not quite sure if I'm going to dive straight into Dark Souls III afterwards.
That's where I left off with the Ancient dragon. Let me know if you need some help. I'll have to check my soul memory also. Good luck!
Ooh thanks for the offer. I'll have to check but I'm pretty sure my Soul Memory is over four million by now. I have kind of dealt with him, but I would be happy to help fight him again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bri
So update time:
I seriously lucked out and finally took down the beastly duo in the Frigid Outskirts. Surprisingly enough, with the exception of the disappointing and lazy boss battle, I actually liked the area. It had a lot more thought put into it than the other hardcore zones and while the Lightning Reindeer are certainly a hassle, as long as you tread carefully and slowly, you only deal with them one at a time which makes it way easier. Especially since it's pretty easy to outrun them surprisingly enough.
After that, I took on the Burnt Ivory King and holy hell if that wasn't one of the most epic boss battles in the game. While he's not as hard as Fume Knight, he makes up for it with spectacle. Certainly a nice end to some great DLC. Though I'm not sure if I want to farm the Loyce Knights to get the final Child of Dark soul.
Overall, the DLC is great if with some questionable design choices. I don't think anyone would disagree with me that all of them would have likely been better if they didn't have the optional zones and they are all generally the weakest link. The Cave of the Dead was my favorite with the Iron Passage easily being my least favorite. Boss battle wise, Ivory King is the weak link with the pets all being boring battles and only made up by the epic Ivory King duel. Old Iron King easily has the best battles with Fume Knight and Sir Alonne both being exemplary, and the Smelter Demon not being too bad. The Sunken King DLC has the best level design with the various switches and hidden passages combined with the cool ghost knight gimmick, though I will say none of the DLC was really a slouch in this department and all four are also simply gorgeous. Difficulty-wise, I feel the Ivory King was the hardest and the Sunken King was the easiest. Lore-wise, the Ivory King was my favorite and the Sunken Kingdom was my least.
After beating the DLC, I decided to tackle the Ancient Dragon. I think I now have my boss who has killed me the most in the game, especially since I've nearly cleared out the Dragon Shrine by this point. With that said, I did beat him finally, and despite dying so much, he's actually really simple to fight. The only real issue with him is his size and the ridiculous damage he can pull off. Despite that, he's also kind of cheap as he got some wonky hit boxes like him "landing" on me despite clearly missing me and the one time he basically flew off the platform and into the perimeter sky around the arena, and thus gave me no room to dodge his fire breath which killed me by launching me off the arena. So he's probably won the most "no fair!" and "this is bulltrout" from me. I think Veldstat was the other boss where I swear his hammer's hit box is twice the size of the model used in game.
With all five Giant Souls, I challenged Vendrick and was promptly crushed for my trouble by me accidentally dodging into him and his surprisingly combo friendly sword wailing. I decided it was getting late and had accomplished enough. Once Vendrick is down, I'll finally try to finish the game. I'm debating about jumping straight into DS3 afterwards but part of me feels I should take a break and come back later.
High five on Ancient dragon! And good luck with Vendrick! Updates please when you do defeat him finally.
I definitely agree about Veldstat also. I am level 172 last time I checked. You have to share with me how you manage to defeat the dragon because he kills me every time!
As for dark souls 1 I am done with getting all foul lord souls as well as my son. I'm so proud of him, he defeated tge four kings on his first try! He basically tanked them. I was a bit jealous though because it took me 4 tries. Well once I'm done I'm going to finish up with ds2 but before I do I must get the DLC! I must!!
Ancient Dragon is notorious for being "easy" and "hard" in different ways; he OHKOs most players but he has one simple pattern and you just repeat it until he's dead. One of the worst boss designs in Souls probably, except for how cool he is.
I'm jealous too, they were one of the hardest fights for me and I think I only initially beat them by having a particularly powerful sorcery build player help me out. I stink at the fight as I learned when I tried to help other players.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bri
As for Ancient Dragon, my strategy involves rushing to his back legs and nipping at his heels of his back feet. Don't stand in front of his feet or between them cause that usually baits his self-immolation attack, and don't attack his tail cause it just makes him use hit tail whip. Basically nip at his heels and when he flies up, chase his tail. Don't get greedy with hits, just hit him twice and then run towards the tip of his tail until you're about halfway between the tip and his feet and simply wait to see what he does, If he flies up, follow the tail and run towards it but slightly to the right of left of it so he doesn't land on you. Wear a Quartz Ring +3 if you have it for protection from his flames or Goyer's Ring that prevents backstabs. Chaos Pants +5 also give you great fire defense and mobility. With that said, focus on mobility and stamina recovery for the fight since most of his attacks will OHK. Also, I wouldn't use partners either since his pattern is surprisingly simple and you don't need to prolong the fight more than you need to or let another player accidentally bait him into using one of his more dangerous attacks like his tail whip or self-immolation. After that, it's a matter of hoping he doesn't land on you and I should warn you his hitbox for landing is a bit larger than it looks so try to keep your distance from his body when he lands but always stay behind him. With that said, be careful if he starts clinging to the edge of the arena as this leaves you open. When he does this, rush to his other foot that's more into the arena and pray his next "jump" will move him back into the arena area so you can maneuver.
Update time:
Game, Set, and Match.
I just got incredibly unlucky on my first attempt with Vendrick but totally kicked his ass on my second, and I better have considering I had all five Giant Souls. Got my upgraded crown, decided not to use it...
Fought Nashandra with some help but it just kept going badly for me, so instead I fought her solo and found her incredibly easy as my damage was significantly better and I played extra cautious. Didn't stop her from cursing me once or twice sadly. Surprisingly, I don't think she ever actually hit me otherwise, her scythe has terrible range.
Aldia was the bigger shocker. This guy has wasted me every time I've tried to help someone with the fight and this time I took him down no problem. I basically learned that I was just being way too overly aggressive before which meant I was taking unnecessary hits from his fire shield and by staying so close, I often left myself open for his pyromancy spells he casts above him and out of my line of sight. So just staying super defensive I was able to get through the fight no problem and actually beat him on my first try.
I ended up taking the "third" ending that's unique to Scholar of the First Sin, which ironically was very similar to the ending choice I took in Dark Souls. As it stands, I think Demon's Souls is still the only entry where I've taken the more altruistic ending choice, though I guess the Dark Lord ending is DS1 is sort of altruistic in its own way when you think about it.
Overall, I feel DS2 is a pretty solid game. The weakest in the series for me so far, but that "weak" entry is still far better than some series strong entries, so understand this is simply me stating it's weak compared to the other entries but is still a great game overall. It does have several issues which hurt it, but it comes in with some interesting ideas as well. The two most glaring faults I can give it is one of quantity over quality. The game is huge compared to other installments and has almost twice as many bosses, but the quality isn't there and some of the bosses are poorly implemented. Editing the game down would actually do wonders for it. I also feel the devs focused a bit too much on the "difficult" part of the "difficult but fair" mantra fans have for the franchise. Gank fights galore, entire zones designed around being as painful and unpleasant to go through as possible, marathon boss battles, screwing with the healing mechanics by giving them a stat to deal with it and largely adding back things in from Demon's Souls that I honestly felt Dark Souls did better, making weapons break easier, and Soul Memory was just a bad idea overall.
On the other hand, the game has way more equipment options, more fun to use boss weapons, power stance (though I never used it), a genuinely better and less trolling online community, better refinement with the Covenants, some great locales, streamlined weapon upgrading, a better hub zone, and some good lore and characters. The DLC, barring the optional zones, are overall still excellent quality that befits the rest of the series. The lore added in Scholar of the First Sin actually segues into the plot of Dark Souls 3 rather nicely as well.
Top 3 Favorite Zones:
The DLC locations
The Shrine of Amana
Aldia's Keep
Top 3 NPCs:
Lucratia of Mirrah
The Pryomancy Teacher
the Cat
Favorite Bosses:
The Executioner's Chariot
The Burnt Ivory King
The Fume Knight
The Glass Knight
For now, I've jumped back into Demon's Souls since this is the last month the servers will still be up. I'm finally checking out the NG+ of which I've heard Demon's Souls has the most jarring jump in difficulty within the franchise. It is both weird coming back to this now that I know what I'm doing, and I am seriously chuckling at my character build. This is probably the closest I've come to playing a "tank build" which is really jarring cause I prefer speed usually. Chances are, the itch for Dark Souls 3 will kick in soon and I'll jump into that instead.
It's been interesting jumping back into Demon's Souls on NG+.
I've just finished 1-2 of Boletaria Castle and I'm going to dive into 2-1 of the Mines cause I want to unlock Blacksmith Ed. I could dive to 1-3 of Boletaria and try to rescue Biorr and Yuria early, but I remember 1-3 having a considerable difficulty spike from the previous zones. On the brightside, I was able to achive Pure White World Tendency in Boletaria, so I got access to the Execution Grounds and finally fought Executioner Miralda who serves as a basis for a character in the Dark Souls series. She has way more health than I feel she deserves, but thankfully we're in Demon's Souls and Poise isn't a thing yet, so stun-locking her made this fight pretty easy once I stopped getting antsy with her.
My stats are kind of awful as I focused on health and kept the rest of my stats kind of even barring luck, meaning I'm not particularly good at anything. The Equip Burden mechanic is far less generous in this game than in Dark Souls as it doesn't take long to finally ditch the fat roll in decent armor in those games, but Stamina is like my second highest stat and I'm still fat rolling in my Fluted Armor set. Not helping things is the scrappy mechanic of Item Burden, which I'm happy the series dropped like a stone after this entry. I am also just too use to trying to roll my way out of situations. One feature Dark Souls brought in that I never noticed until now is that rolls can cancel actions like healing and take priority. Demon's Souls doesn't do this, so I've had a few embarrassing deaths due to trying and failing to roll out of a healing item animation when an enemy closes the gap between us than I anticipated.
While I did acquire several great spells and boss weapons in the first run, I'm either not built to use any of them effectively or more often, they are not as useful as they sound. This comes a bit jarring coming from DSII where I actually felt the boss weapons/Soul Arts were handled really well for once. With that said, the Lava Bow is still my favorite bow in the series (high damage and arrows do fire damage) thus far, though the Dragonrider Bow in DSII was a nice substitute.
Boss-wise, I'm surprised that Phalanx turned into a bigger ordeal than I felt it should. She has more Phalanx Guards than in NG and it seems like they got a boost to fire and magic defense. On the other hand, outside of getting hit by multiple Phalanx Guards, most of their minions do laughable damage so the battle just took longer than I remember it doing. The Tower Knight was a completely different story, as he can still come close to taking me out with one hit with most of his attacks, but being able to fight him with an upgraded magic imbued weapon saw me nearly finish him off with my first combo after I knocked him down once. I had a harder time fighting the two Blue-Eyed Knights guarding his Fog Gate than with him. I really hope Flamelurker goes down this easily. I also took down the Red Dragon in 1-2, which I instantly regret because he actually makes this zone go faster since he murders everything on the tower bridges for you. He's still my favorite stage hazard dragon in the series.
Regular enemies are a bit weird, everything has much more health so it's still taking two to three hits to finish off things, but that's manageable. The damage they do is the bigger problem cause while I remember Knights always being powerful foes up until the end, it's surprisingly to see Dredglings take out 75% of my health if they actually stunlock me into their flailing attack.
It's been interesting so far and while the place isn't active anymore online-wise, I still love the notes you can find and I actually got repped for a few of them. I do love the fact that Demon's Souls changes the color of your messages so you can spot them easier. Funnily enough, they look like summon signs. How long I keep this playthrough up is unknown. DS3 is calling me it seems.
Who else here has actually played Demon's Souls btw?
Got demons souls before dark souls was even a glimmer in anyone's eye. I still love that game to death.
Last night was not nearly as productive as I would have liked. I tried to play Stonfang Tunnels, but the connection was off this evening and so I either had to listen to the sound effects get delayed and stutter at best, or watch as characters and enemies warped around leading to some awkward deaths. The workers are not a big deal, just scaled for my character, the Fat Officials on the other hand have reached Demonic Spiders level, seeing how most of their attacks can take out 80% of my health if I don't dodge or block it, and they must have gotten 5x their normal health in this round cause they are tanky as all hell and they have close to a thousand HP. I am very happy I didn't try 1-3 of Boletaria cause that place is crawling with the assholes.
I did throw Dark Souls 3 in last night and let the PS4 download the updates. I'll probably get back to Demon's Souls, but I can feel myself being drawn to Dark Souls 3. Any advice before I embark on the third and final installment?
Not really. Dark Souls 3 doesn't try to "get you" like Dark Souls 2 does. And it's pretty linear compared to the previous two games.
A productive evening, but I was unable to accomplish the one thing I really wanted to do. So I'm still playing Demon's Souls and I took down both the Armored Spider in 2-1 as well as the Adjucator in 4-1. I tried my hand with the Flamelurker but I simply can't keep up enough damage to take him down quickly whereas he can two shot me. I'm thinking I'll either complete the first stage of the two reaming worlds, or more likely do what I did last time and complete the Storm Shrine area so I can use the Storm King's area to do some quick leveling up. I need to boost my magic stat in order to take down the Flamelurker quickly cause it's a real pain to complete this game when you're best blacksmith is only working at half his skill level. I've been doing a better job controlling my World Tendency, so I'm hoping I'll be able to get the special sword from 2-3 this time around.
Another productive evening, but I'm still stuck on the Flamelurker. On the brightside, I've completed the Shrine of Storms area (which I consider to be the easiest of the five regions) and the Warding Spell is still the MVP of magic spells, which allowed me to wreck the dual-wielding katana skeletons. I was also able to max out two of my weapons (Darkmoon and Quality/Raw) with the stones I acquired in the area, met patches, rescued Saint Urbain giving me access to the higher tier miracles I'm likely going to ignore except for possibly Second Chance, and I've unlocked one of the best Soul Farming areas in the game. Not to mention the Old Hero and the Storm King are two really fun fights despite how easy they are.
Now that I've gotten some more levels in Magic, I'm going to challenge the Flamelurker again. If I still fail, I may jump into Boletaria 1-3 and see if I can rescue Biorr and Yuria, mainly so I can get access to better sorcery magic. If not, I'll probably start Tower of Latria to rescue Sage Frieke, which I'm both looking forward to and dreading at the same time, as it ended up being one of my favorite areas in the game, but I can only imagine what NG+ has done to make the place more terrifying. As usual, I'm probably going to leave the Valley of Defilement for last, cause smurf that place.
Pretty productive night.
Completely forgot that I had Poison Cloud, one of the ultimate cheese spells in the game, and decided to cheese Flamelurker so I could get on with things. Took down the Dragon God as well, and was able to obtain Pure White Tendency, allowing me to obtain the Dragon Bone Smasher a.k.a. "Gut's Dragonslayer" which I'm happy about cause I was denied in the last playthrough due to my ignorance with the World Tendency shenanigans.
With that done, I tested out Boletaria 1-3 and got the keys needed to free Biorr and Yuria to help fill up my Nexus. I didn't fight the Penetrator though due to being low on resources as I didn't imagine I would get as far as I did. I did open up the shortcut to get to the boss area. With that said, I'm worried the game might make me have to rescue Ostrava again. Surprisingly, the Red-Eyed Knights are not so tough, perhaps due to a few more levels in Strength and upgrading my primary weapon, but I'm worried he's not tough enough to survive. It's the other issue of why I didn't fight the Penetrator, cause while I love having Biorr to help me, I'm not so sure he'll survive the encounter this time. From what I've heard, allies don't get stat buffs in NG+ or at least not significant ones.
With that, I jumped into the Tower of Latria. My main goal here is to actually get summoned for the Old Monk boss battle, in hopes of winning his headpiece. Not likely to happen mind you, but I'm hoping the announcement of the server closure would bring some people back for this. With that said, I was able to cover about 80% of 3-1 before sleep deprivation made me fall off an obvious cliff and I decided to call it quits. The funny thing for me is that I'm more worried about the Red Phantom guarding the Cathedral entrance than the actual boss battle.
Another one my wish list is completing the last of the Boss Weapons, of which I think I only have like two left to make, one of which is the Scraping Spear. I do need to see if I can farm some more Hardstone, Dragonstone, and Cloudstone Chunks. I have at least three weapons very close to being maxed out but I still need those particular stones. I'm probably not going to bother with Bladestone weapons this time around.
One thing I have been debating about is whether I want to switch the world to Black Tendency or not. I understand now that I probably should have done this on my last playthrough in NG, but a few of the missing items I really want are all rewards for vanquishing some of the game's black phantom versions of characters like Lord Rydel, and Scivir the Wanderer. I'm also debating on whether I should do the Mephistophie Questline, as she is now the only NPC I have not met in the game. Again, probably going to wait until all I have left to do is fight False King Allant to do any of this. How bad is Black World Tendency?
If I don't get around to any of that, I'm at a pretty good pace at this point, and assuming the Maneaters and the Valley of Defilement don't kikc my ass too hard, I may be able to finish this game rather soon and start Dark Souls 3.
Playing through this entry again, I do feel like this is the game that should be getting a remaster rather than Dark Souls. Largely because I feel it needs it more. Some tweaking of events and adding in a few of the advancements from Dark Souls would really polish off a great game that's a bit too rough around the edges at time. Not to mention it's kind of the "lost entry" by this point if you don't count any of the King's Field games. .
Not a bad evening.
Finished 3-1 of the Tower of Latria. Forgot how much of a joke the Fool's Idol is as long as you kill the summoner beforehand. I just need to farm a few more Hardstone Chunks and I'll finally raise my starting weapon to it's +10 form.I'm grateful that weapon crafting got easier as the series went on. Saved Sage Frieke, so I now have all of the "good" NPCs in the Nexus. I was even able to level up a few more weapons and finally got my Scraping Spear. No luck with getting summoned for the Old Monk fight, but I've noticed a slightly higher online activity in these stages, so I'm hoping I may luck out eventually. Granted my PvP skills are mediocre at best in these games, so even if I did manage to get summoned, I'm very likely to get thrashed for my troubles.
I now get to deal with second of the unholy trinity of nasty bosses in this game with the Maneaters. I also guess I'll save Yurt and then kill him as soon as I get back to the Nexus. It's funny how I'm really trying to lavish these final areas, cause I'm certainly dreading the Valley of Defilement. I probably died more times in that area than anywhere else except maybe the second Stonefang Tunnel stage and even that was largely due to Flamelurker. The only saving grace of this area is that all of the bosses are pretty damn easy barring the battle against Garl Vinland in the last area.
Wolf Kanno Was able to get Demon souls for a good price! Played just a little of it and my goodness are my hands itchy to continue! But I must wait until I'm completely done with ds2. My sone and I finished playing dark souls 1 and dlc. It was such a great sight to see my son beat Gwyn. He said he felt sad a bit at the end for defeating Gwyn and he liked that he by the way liked the fight song. So now he has moved on to ds2 and playing demons souls as well. He says he really likes demons souls very much! For Valentines Bob got me Scholar of the first sin! I was sooooo happy! Best Valentine's gift ever in my 31yrs of life! I can't wait to get started on it soon. I was able to defeat Ancient dragon without armor! After attempting god knows how many times I finally said smurf this trout and decided to go without armor. Uses my lighting greatsword two handed and hunter bow. The feeling I got when I finally defeated him was a wonderful one. Also did memories, wasn't sure in what order but I did solo the Giant Lord. Boy was he easy when I figured out his pattern of attacks. I do have to say that ds2 is pretty complicated in a way to really piss you off. But I must persevere to the end!! Hopefully next month I'll be getting a ps4 along with ds3 bloodbourne and believe it ir not Nioh!! Woot woot!! Also FF so me and Bob can play together! It's going to be a good year for me so far!
Also Dark Souls remastered is coming~ I can't wait to see what they've done with it
Congratulations on finally beating the Ancient Dragon, I knew I felt pretty satisfied when I won. Also congrats to your son for beating Dark Souls!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bri
Yeah Demon's Souls is a pretty fun game, if a little clunky compared to the later DS series. It's still uber fun, and I've been having a blast with my new playthrough. If you need advice, I have the game rather fresh in my mind at the moment.
Thank you!! It was a tough fight with that ancient dragon. I'm done with the memories now so I am not sure where to go or should I do DLC. I'll probably figure it out or you could help me out by telling me. Don't really care for spoilers just excited to play!!
Well things to do in DS2 if you haven't yet:Quote:
Originally Posted by Bri
Kill Hollow Vendrick
Find the door in the Shrine of Amala that leads you to Vendrick's gear and soul.
Join the Pilgrims of the Dark so you can fight Darklurker
Do the DLC, so you can fight the new final boss in Scholar of the First Sin.
See if you can find the Catarina Set hidden throughout the DLC.
Go to the Throne of Want hidden in Drangleic Castle to face the final boss.
If you decide to try the DLC, and wish to fight all of the optional bosses, I highly advise doing the optional areas ASAP, cause all three are frankly terrible and their boss fights are chores. The rest of the DLC is fantastic though, so I prefer doing them early as not to leave a bad taste in my mouth with the DLC. If you don't care about any of that, then stick to the two "story" bosses from each DLC, of which you'll usually have to beat one to get to the other. If you manage to collect all three crowns as well as Vendrick's, Past Vendrick will give you a boon where wearing any of the four crowns in the game will prevent you from Hollowing when you die. You will also face a new final boss in the Scholar of the First Sin version after you beat the original final boss.
Also, in the Iron King DLC, to get Nadalia's soul (she's the weird flaming corpse that whispers to you throughout the dungeon and tends to buff enemies near her until removed) you need to use the Smelter Wedges you find at the beginning to exorcise her and collect her soul fragments. There are a total of twelve fragments but you'll need to find the other six wedges to get them all. My main advice here is to ignore the first one you find, cause unlike the majority of them, she's easy to reach. Save four of the wedges until you reach the bottom floor of the tower where Fume Knight is, there you'll find four of them and it's highly recommended you use these four here outside of his boss room. The reason why is because they will heal him during the fight and he's a super tough boss without the extra help.
Alright! Thanks for the tips! I will make sure to come back to your post to help me out. Will post updates as well. My sons birthday is tomorrow but his grammy gave him money to buy new controller. So we ended up buying one earlier and he got himself Naruto and Dantes Inferno. Bob said it should be a good game!
Not as productive of an evening as I had hoped. I did farm some crystal lizards and finally upgraded my Sticky Longbow to +4, but it's looking less likely that I will be able to max it out this playthrough without some serious farming, and sadly, Luck is my worst stat at the moment except for maybe Intelligence. With that said, I upgraded one of my shield's fully, which was nice.
I ran into my first real roadblock in the second part of the Tower of Latria. The Red Phantom version of the Mindflayer can one-shot me with his Soul Arrow spell, it's not even using the higher tier Soul Ray which the boss of the previous area used and I could still survive through, it's just the basic version. The scary part here is that the normal Mindflayers can K.O. me with their basic non-magic attacks, so fighting this thing up close is not likely going to work either. So I'm going to have to be extra careful at trying to fight it at range.
Not helping me here is that Faith, which inexplicably controls my Magic Defense, isn't exactly a stat I use very often. So I poured a few more points into Faith, and I'm now wearing Garl Vinland'd Dark Silver Armor set since it has the best stats in my inventory for magic defense, in hopes this will give me an edge. My other issue is that servers went down as well, so no hope of getting summoned for the Old Monk fight.
Had a very interesting evening last night.
So I made it to the Maneaters, and holy hell are people not kidding that they are a bit more of a handful on NG+. They are far more tanky, and even with Warding cast on, they can still pack a punch if some of their moves land. The real challenge for me is that their better defenses means this fight drags on more, and if don't take out their tails ASAP, they can pelt me with Homing Soul Rays that can effectively one-shot me. The other issue is simply the arena. I think two of my deaths have simply been me falling off the bridge where the battle takes place trying to maneuver around them. So I'm hoping a change in weapons will give me the DPS needed to trivialize the fight and I'll likely be doing the Fog Gate cheat cause dealing with two of them at the same time is a bit of a nightmare.
On the brightside, I was finally summoned for the Old Monk fight and even managed to destroy my poor opponent whom I caught off guard to get a backstab in and then my Crescent Scimitar's natural Bleed effect made him have to heal too often which left him open for me to finish him. So I was able to win the only item in the game you have to earn through the Online component, meaning I'm not shut out of eventually turning this file into a perfect game down the road if I wanted. I was honestly so floored this happened that I'm still pretty excited cause I absolutely suck at PvP in these games.
Now that the one last box needed to be checked for this game has been done, I'm feeling a bit better about maybe moving onto Dark Souls III soon.
Maneaters are down. Used the Fog Gate cheat to kill the first one cause just one of them is a serious handful. Took me several tries and I even gained a few more soul levels to help me out. I also took out Yurt the Silent before he could kill anyone useful. I didn't check, but I've probably shifted World Tendency towards Pure White, so I'll see if I can finally do Lord Rydell's quest in Latria. Then I'll finish off the Old Monk and move onto the Valley of Defilement. *shiver*
Oh my god finally defeated Vendrick. No armor because he was just...ayayai! I did use my blossom shield for extra stamina. Got his armor and crown as well as soul and also joined the dark covenant to fight the dark lurker.
I don't know but I don't even like that name of that boss at all.
He's surprisingly not too bad, though his second phase can be stressful if you let it. Most of his attacks are slow and he has pretty generous tells. When his second phase kicks in, I advise you to not use the lock on feature, control the camera manually, keep your distance, and take your hits when you can get them safely. This boss is about making you panic and act recklessly, but's he's actually pretty slow which makes him manageable. I advise challenging him at the portal at Drangleic Castle since there is a bonfire right next to the Old Man who heads the covenant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bri
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In Demon's Souls news, I had a very weird evening.
So I took on the Old Monk, and as I figured, a lot of people are taking advantage of knowing the servers will offocially be gone at the end of the month, so I had three different people invade me for this fight, though I only fought one of them cause those damn Black Phantom Mindflayers are a real bitch until I realized all of their moves are magic based and Anti-Magic Field is a slightly broken spell. The weird part of the evening is that not only did my opponent not put up much of a fight, but I think they actually gifted me a Pure Bladestone (It is the rarest Upgrade Material in the game, only obtained as a rare drop from a nasty enemy in the Shrine of Storms Area) cause one was just lying there in the boss room. So I kind of feel bad, cause I'm not sure if they purposely threw the fight or was simply hoping I could be bribed to throw the fight for them. Considering how non-aggressive they were, I think they just let me win. Still left a weird feeling, but I've heard of players in this game invading other players only to actually help them out. I may actually do that once I reach the last few levels.
Also, smurf the Valley of Defilement. Like seriously, it is the worst poison swamp area in the series. I haven't even reached the second level which is worse, but the first zone is being obnoxious. One thing that got changed in the later entries is the ability to attack enemies who are "playing dead" not in this game. The enemies in the first part pretend to be corpses and then ambush you once you've passed them. Also, the Large Variant has a crap ton of health, which I was expecting, and making me dread even more so, the next stage. Thew True Demon's Souls begins here indeed.
Yes that was what I was doing, target lock and also panicking. So what I finally did was poured myself some red wine, filled my mouth with dark chocolates to refrain from swearing ( mothersmurfer!!!! Smurf!!! Smurf you Vendrick! You old smurfing smurf!!! ) did not target lock, used an upgraded greatsword and next thing I knew he died. It took me a while to see that all I had to do was just relax and hug his right, hit and roll. I actually tried to parry him but I guess that didn't work lol. Oh okay, I went down into the gulch to find him and saw a portal near him. But I'll go back to drangleic because you're right there is a bf there as well. Should I have something equipped specifically? And thank you again! Good luck in demons souls by the way, I went back to pick up on where I left and last I did was saved and NPC, I followed him around a bit and that's where I left off. Sad that server will be shut down next week, I won't be able to summon or be summoned. But will definitely enjoy it offline for sure!
Darklurker is weak to Lightning, and all but one of his attacks are Dark Based, so Dark Defense is a must. With that said, he is susceptible to the Hex that prevents magic from being cast, which will largely cripple him and make him a joke, but frankly, as long as you keep your wits about you, he's not too bad, again, his second phase is what usually causes people to panic.
Sounds like you saved Astrova of Boletaria. He pops up in each section of Boletaria and has to be "rescued" in each stage except the last for his questline. I think after you save him the second time, he'll start appearing in the Nexus. Funny enough, all the NPCs you can rescue in Boletaria Castle are pretty much the most friendly characters in the game not counting Stockpile Thomas.
Oh, I'm starting to wonder if I'll be able to finish this game before February 28. I completed the first part of the Valley of Defilement after a few annoying run-throughs. I was surprised to learn that the area boss Leechmonger actually has a healing move if you fail to attack it for a while, something you don't see too often from bosses in this series. I'm now in the much longer and significantly more hostile second area where even the Warding spell can't stop me from getting two-shotted by the Meat Cleaver Black Phantom and Giant Depraved Ones.
If you're wondering why this place is so awful, let me explain. The first section is like the first part of Blighttown where you're in dilapidated buildings hoisted above a swamp, and your goal is to reach the bottom safely. This part has ambushes galore, with enemies that can play dead and not be hit with attacks until they activate, and they even hide around corners or hay stacks, so it's easy to walk into a room thinking you'll only have to face two enemies to discover there are six of them instead. While the regular enemies don't have much in health, they make up for it with high attack power, and by the second stage when all the enemies get a boost, the regular cannon fodder enemies can two-shot you unless you've been pouring ridiculous amounts of points into Vitality. The structures have several trap holes like the Gutter in DS2, but whereas the enemies in that area tend to be dumbfounded for a few seconds when you come crashing down, the enemies here swarm you. There are also major bridges with no railings over a pit that are usually guarded by the tanky and hard hitting Giant Depraved Ones. So it's a slow process getting in as you have to be extra careful going into any new place and constantly checking your flank in case you missed a "corpse" trying to ambush you. Did I mention the brown and red color palette of the area blends perfectly with the enemies?
The second area is significantly worse. It's pretty much the second part of Blighttown where you're in the main swamp. You start out on the rim, and the actual area to the boss is not far from where you start but, you can't access it at first as the norm. So you take the rim into the swamp. The swamp, as tradition, prevents you from running, dodging, and significantly slows you down while also poising you if you linger in there too long. Where this gets a little bulltrout is that these restrictions only apply to you. All of the enemies in the area move swiftly in the swamp, including the Black Phantom wandering around. You leave rim to enter the swamp properly and begin "island hopping" to discover the swamp is separated by a poorly made wall, so in order to get past it, you take the islands to sides, usually guarded by several Giant Depraved Ones, which I'll remind you have a boost in all their stats in this area and unlike the Boulder throwing monsters in Blighttown, these guys have an insanely huge aggro zone and love to pursue you if they see you.
What's unique to the Valley of Defilement is that it's raining mud, which significantly hinders your visibility and makes the Thief Ring a bit useless since you'll now have to be in an enemies aggro range before you can finally see them past the muck. An interesting thing this also does is screw with your perception. The muck carefully hides the Black Phantom since the red doesn't come out as much so you won't notice her until she's nearly upon you, and there are several places where you'll spot a normal enemy, fire an arrow to aggro it close to you, only to discover to your horror, that it's actually a Giant Depraved One and the area uses some simple optical illusions to make you misjudge this. Once you get past the swamp, and to the other side of the area, you're back in a similar situation as the first stage, where you're walking through a "living area" that is swarming with enemies ready to ambush you but now we've added magic users into the mix, and it's only in this part where you'll find the shortcut leading back to the beginning of the stage. So yeah,. it's not a fun place at all. Throw in the fact it has a ton of really good gear and special weapons like the Sword of Moonlight in the outlier areas of the map, as well as the fact the enemies in this area drop next to nothing in terms of souls despite their increased difficulty, and you have a very unpleasant place to slog through. The only two saving graces besides the great loot is that all the bosses of the area are extremely easy, and the jellyfish monsters that swarm you in the swamp are one of the rare normal enemies that disappear forever after being killed until a new NG+ Cycle.
So yeah, it's going to be a few nights before I reach the boss of this area.:cry:
Valley of Defilement is mostly done, I'm just finishing up the Pure White Tendency Event, but I may have screwed myself out of that one as well. After a few attempts and being extra careful, I made it through the swamp and even learned I can skip the first Giant Depraved One by being real careful and stealthy. I still need to kill the Red Phantom in the area, but it's not a huge deal, and I'll probably skip it. This basically leaves the last two stages of Boletaria Castle to deal with, and I thankfully cleared most of one of the stages and opened the shortcut to the boss, so I'll likely get that done tonight. That leaves the last stage and that battle with the Blue Dragon and False King Allant, who is very likely going to be the last real obstacle for clearing the game before the Online Services end on Wednesday. It's been a blast blasting through the this game a second time with more Souls experience, and I'll likely dive into Dark Souls 3 next.
And... I pretty much beat the game tonight. Kind of surprised the last section didn't give me as hard of a time as I thought it would. Biorr still kicked ass in the Penetrator and Blue Dragon battles, and hey, I was even able to kill the dragon before he was killed, meaning I got to keep him alive.
False King Allant was a handful, but he thankfully leaves enough windows to heal unlike Flamelurker, and he's also surprisingly weak to pure physical damage, which was great cause I finally upgraded my starting weapon to +10 with Hardstone, earning me the last trophy I'm likely to get for this cycle.
I was sadly, unable to defeat BP Garl Vinland to finish his sister's questline. Some how, when I left the zone to repair my gear after getting thumped so bad by him, he stopped showing up. It doesn't look like my World Tendency changed, but perhaps he despawns if you leave the area? Either way, it's something I'll have to do next cycle along with Pure Black World Tendency, and trying to get my character's own tendency to pure black and white to obtain the last two rings I need for the Rogue Trophy. Alas, another time.
With the "final" confrontation before me, I'll likely jump to the ending I didn't choose last time, which I've heard gets a shout out in one of the possible Dark Soul 3 endings, so this will be a treat.
Overall, Demon's Souls is still really fun to play, but still pretty rough around the edges compared to Dark Souls. I still hope Sony may convince FROM Software to give it the remaster treatment since Sony seems to be big on that lately. Some fixes to the World/Character Tendency Systems, more rewards for the Boss Souls, a unified online server, and maybe revamping the boss A.I. would do wonders for this game. I still recommend it for any Souls fans who own a PS3 and need a Souls fix.
Sooo... I finally got ds3!!! Bloodbourne and was so tempted to get Nioh but I said I will wait on it a bit. Dark souls 2, I still have yet to beat darklurker. I am going to transfer the ps3 into my room so it is easier to play at night. I put darklurker aside for now because running out of damn effigies. Sucks that you got to spend effigies just for that boss. Goodness gracious!! So I started DLC and on my way to defeat the slumberibg dragon!!
He will be a treat for sure!
The Slumbering Dragon is a pretty cool fight. I ended up liking this DLC far more than I thought I would. The ghost knights were an interesting concept.
Soooo, ended up getting a Ps4 along with dark souls 3 and bloodbourne and demon souls as well. I had only meant to put ds3 on and just make a character and then somehow I am now going to face Pontiff...I love this game so far. I feel bad though because I kind of forgotten to go back and fisnish ds2. Last I left off was in dlc. Now I'm wishing I did not even start of ds3 but It's fun and somehow a bit easier compared to ds2. Also! Bob just started a new character last night in ds3 and will hopefully continue with it. He made me start playing ff14 so that we can play together online he thought since I'm playing he'll try and play ds3. If he likes it we'll get another ps4 so that we can co-op. Hoping he does because I already like ff14 so far! Also must go back and finish up ds2 and dlc.
Glad you're enoying it. I'll get to to DS3 once I finish my Chrono itch at the moment. Unless Bloodborne gets to me first...
Found this video and thought it was pretty neat. It sounds like we were denied a rather interesting Dark Souls 2.
Okay real post, I just started up Dark Souls III tonight cause the other Halloweenish type games I have I wasn't feeling as much and I've been itching to play this since I finished DSII. My biggest beef so far is that just like Bloodborne, the online gameplay is hidden behind the PS+ paywall and outside of these two games I'm probably never going to use it so I'm a bit annoyed it came to this. So I'm doing this solo just like Bloodborne.
As tradition, I remained in my basic bitch choice of Knight as my starting class, if only because the starting armor looks like the fluted armor from Demon's Souls which is my favorite armor in the Souls series. My Burial Item was the Life Ring because none of the other items sounded useful.
So after making a hideous character cause I've never been good with face creation features in games, I rolled through the tutorial area, ignored the crystal monstrosity hiding in one of the optional paths, and crushed Gundyr like a bug and then was promptly murdered by the Ronin Hollow guarding a door near the Firelink Shrine. Twice, and I lost all my souls. I was going to let that slide but losing that many souls before reaching the person who levels me up just didn't sit well with me, so I exited the game and started a new file.
Managed to make a significantly better looking player character who looks like a young Mitsurugi of another famous series with Soul in the title. Waltzed through the tutorial, decided to not err on caution and tackled that overgrown monster Crystal Lizard who turned out to be super easy. Crushed Gundyr a second time, saved at the Firelink Shrine and leveled up, then tackled the Ronin Hollow, who still crushed me because I can't get the parry timing down. Ended up beating him as a fluke because I rolled past him when he did his charge attack and then tried to backstab him, only for the guy to continue his combo off a cliff. Sadly, I fell with him since I used auto-target and ended up doing a combo instead of a backstab like I planned. Went back for round two but he doesn't respawn and instead I found his gear waiting for me by my bloodstain.
Went to Lothric High Wall which is basically a weird redo of Boletaria Castle/Undead Burg with the usual assortment of Souls tropes like a dragon level hazard, suicidal hollow dregs, and more dangerous armored knights. New this time around are the Humanity Corrupted Hollows who easily fell into "avoid if you can" territory since they soak damage like a sponge and they take up so much of the screen that staying in close makes combat too difficult to tell what anyone is doing.
I found the cell key to free the thief character who has me looking for some old woman at the bottom of the wall, and to my surprise, while I explored that way I ended up encountering the next boss, who is a mace wielding dog knight who ended up being ridiculously easy since I just followed the Bloodborne method of dealing with big bosses by staying under him where all his attacks missed.
Leveled up a few times and upgraded my weapon once, noticed armor upgrades are gone, and was able to get two extra Estus Flasks. I don't really know how I'm going to build my character this time around but I'm already noticing the heavy influence Bloodborne left on this entry with the sped up combat, higher basic combos, more generous stamina recovery, and the heavier emphasis on weapon arts this time around. The other thing is the graphics, part of the game look like they could be from Bloodborne as well due to the game sharing the former's high detail and stylized aesthetics. I don't think any of the castles in other Dark Soul entries were this heavily ornamented with all the statues, corpses, and general weirdness.
I am digging the game really playing up the idea of this being the end. The earlier entries never felt like the world was really just coming to an end like it does in this entry and while the "Unkindled" is just another way of saying Hollow mechanically, I'm digging the premise of hunting down former heroes of the fire linking.
Anyway, any suggestions or hints? I've heard there is something off about armor in this entry among other complaints from long time Souls fans.
its weird i could kill the crystal monstrosity at the start, but couldnt beat the abyss watchers lol.
Not sure if you liked two handing in DS2, but it's very specific in DS3, where you have to get a "weapon" that is really two weapons, in order to properly two hand. But since you're a knight I doubt you're all that interested. I won't spoil it, but if you talk to the turtle hermit guy, and take him up on his offer, you'll find out what the difference is between being hollowed and being unkindled/enkindled is for this game
But yeah, I like the idea that you're character is one of thousands who linked the flame previously, and one of thousands who was re-awoken because you succeeded once, and they need you again, because the heroes are being stupid. Once you get most of the way through the game, there's a really good Game Theory video about who your character is actually supposed to be, and I kinda like their theory. But it won't make sense until you encounter a lot of things in the main game, so I'd only watch that once all the main heroes are defeated
You probably already know to save boss souls, you'll get a thing for that later. You probably already learned you can manage different types of flasks, and as a melee character you may not even need the blue flasks, so you can max out on yellow flasks. Though I hate that they share a pool. It kind of gimps mage classes. Much prefer the old way where spells take stamina, and have charges. So it's not a drain on estus
And I doubt you'll have too much trouble with going solo. The only bosses I ever needed a friend with were halfway through the game, and the one has like 3 NPC summons right outside his door. So that's no problem offline. Aldrich may be a problem, though. I can give you more specific advice when you get to him. I don't think there's any NPC summons, and last time I tried, there was nobody available to help. So PS+ would probably be useless there. I've always had to solo him except for my first run through of the game. And he's quite the anti-thesis to a lot of character builds. So it can get tricky until you get used to his BS
Hi!! I'm glad you finally playing ds3!! Yes it is almost in a way like bb ( for me ) password matchmaking just can't Parry with a gun. As for Armor, there is no poise I believe to level up so I'm guessing the stringer the armor the better stance and poise. I still have to complete alot of quests as it's a bit confusing to me but I know you'll be able to figure it out.
Galuf! Nice to hear you playing some ds as well!
I never actually figured out how to duel wield in DSII but from what I've seen of video, it looks a lot smoother in DSIII. I might go that route this time around since I tend to be way more aggressive and I've been having issues getting parry down since the second game. Thanks for the heads up about the hollowing guy, I'll keep an eye out for him. Without the online component, I'll probably be missing more content than usual unless I resort to a quest guide or something.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyk
You'll have to give me a link to the video when the time comes.Quote:
But yeah, I like the idea that you're character is one of thousands who linked the flame previously, and one of thousands who was re-awoken because you succeeded once, and they need you again, because the heroes are being stupid. Once you get most of the way through the game, there's a really good Game Theory video about who your character is actually supposed to be, and I kinda like their theory. But it won't make sense until you encounter a lot of things in the main game, so I'd only watch that once all the main heroes are defeated
I've been debating about subbing a magic class. I'm usually really bad about it though, but as it stands Hexes are one of the few spell types I've never used, and I've also noticed their is a new Frost element as well. We'll see, but I've heard that magic builds have it really rough in this entry. I know the devs have been trying to nerf them a bit but it just seems like they might have gone too far if the stat requirements I've read about are to be believed. The new weapon arts have been interesting so far.Quote:
You probably already know to save boss souls, you'll get a thing for that later. You probably already learned you can manage different types of flasks, and as a melee character you may not even need the blue flasks, so you can max out on yellow flasks. Though I hate that they share a pool. It kind of gimps mage classes. Much prefer the old way where spells take stamina, and have charges. So it's not a drain on estus
I'm not terribly worried about the bosses so far, as I've kicked the trout out of the first two with little issue. I think the only one I'm concerned about is the Pontiff guy and that's only because I can't seem to get the timing of the parry system down just yet and I've heard that makes the difference between him being easy to handle vs. That One Boss status. On the other hand, I can already tell this game has more nightmare regular encounters I'm going to dread as most of my deaths so far have been dealing with them.Quote:
And I doubt you'll have too much trouble with going solo. The only bosses I ever needed a friend with were halfway through the game, and the one has like 3 NPC summons right outside his door. So that's no problem offline. Aldrich may be a problem, though. I can give you more specific advice when you get to him. I don't think there's any NPC summons, and last time I tried, there was nobody available to help. So PS+ would probably be useless there. I've always had to solo him except for my first run through of the game. And he's quite the anti-thesis to a lot of character builds. So it can get tricky until you get used to his BS
Thanks, it's been calling my name lately and I even put up the DSIII wallpaper on my PS4 for Halloween so I sort of did this to myself. It helps the game has a more horror vibe to it like Demon's Souls than the previous entries as well. I have the special edition so I have all the DLC as well so this should keep me busy until holiday season.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bri
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I haven't played any today, but I did forget to comment on something I did like about the game so far and that's actually having no scrappy stats for once. Demon's Souls had a bad stat spread for mages and endurance was the token stat to raise thanks to the scrappy item burden mechanic the rest of the series thankfully dropped. Dark Souls had the useless poison stat. DSII had that awful stat required to make using estus not suicide, and Bloodborne could have done more to make Bloodtinge and Arcane actually viable builds in the early game. So far, DSIII seems to have a decent stat spread with no particular stat feeling useless. I'm even happy Luck came back as a stat and affects drop rate. I've heard they even have an equivalent of the Blueblood sword from Demon's Souls that scales with the stat which is nice but it might come as the closest to being kind of a useless stat at the moment.
While I can continue past Lothric Wall, I'm probably going to explore the area a bit more because I know I've missed a few spots because I'm missing the keys or the stage hazard dragon makes going for new doors into shmuck bait.
Alright, that was a productive evening.
Explored one part of the High Wall I missed and found the Way of Blue Covenant, not that it does me much good. I also discovered the SunBros covenant as well though it was rather anti-climatic.
Ventured into the Undead Settlement where I was greeted by leftover Yharmanites who haven't been consumed by the Beast blood as well as the wives of the Fat Officials from Demon's Souls who hit hard and soak damage more than I would like just like their hubbys. I am a bit taken back by how many NPCs are sitting around this place as well. In DSII it seemed like it took forever to fill up the fire shrine, but I've already found a basic Sorcerer in Yore of Londor who is trying to make me come to the darkside; a pyromancer teacher who feels like an older version of the one from DS1; and my Miracle teacher who has an interesting vibe going for since she seems like she's blind and she has a bodyguard who looks like Vinland and Veldstat had a baby. I was also pleased to see that Greirat's ring quest took a page out of Demon's Souls with finding his friend the same way you find Stockpile Thomas' wife, he might be my favorite NPC at the moment. Also, the lone Lord of Cinder who actually showed up to the shrine and looks like a half burnt corpse mentioned I need to find some item to help him get the most out of souls, so I'll need to look into that since that sounds like something to do with Boss Souls.
My biggest quirk was having a minor Bloodborne flashback when I hopped a ride with one of the scary butcher guys with a cage. Was kind of an accident because I was actually trying to back stab him when I found him. Anyway, I found the Mound-Makers who are a little nuts it seems. I also found our recurring item loving crow. I do want to find some more Titanite Shards to bump my Longsword to +3. Not sure if I want to use any infusions yet, I have Raw, Sharp, and Heavy gems. Despite having three of the four magic types, I'm hesitant to really jump into any of them at the moment.
So I have three options right now, I can either got back to Lothric and see if I can race my sorry ass over to one of the doors Mr. Wyvern is guarding and explore more of the place, I can head towards the creepy cathedral that both the Crestfallen Soldier and Bodyguard Knight mentioned while chuckling about it being certain doom, or I can head through the really big door on the opposite side of the settlement where I imagine the area boss is snoozing.
Also...
PC Master RaceQuote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
And deny myself the chance to trash talk Sony because they always have this knack for shooting themselves in the foot? Never.Quote:
Originally Posted by SpuukyPC Master RaceQuote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
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Update Time
Been keeping a decent pace going so far. Took down two more bosses yesterday. The Tree guy felt like a redo of the abomination boss from Bloodborne though it was more interesting because it had specific places to be targeted. The Crystal Sage boss gave me a bit more trouble since that fight eventually devolves into me dodging Macross Missile swarms of Soul Arrow spells. I ended up needing to summon Eygon just so the boss could have one more target and give me time to reach his teleporting ass.
Road of Sacrifices wasn't too bad of a location except for the two super aggressive beastmen monsters tied to crosses and learning the hard way not to summon Mound Maker factions because they're no ones friend. I found out too late why fans nicknamed him Parry God Horace. I also fought the two Faroon Exiles guarding the route to Farron Woods/Swamp as well as the two bandits guarding the entrance to the Cathedral of the Deep. I even took down this game's version of the Butcher blade chick. So I'm not doing too bad.
I met Anri of Astora and her friend which was nice and I also met Seigward and fought a demon with him. I'm curious about the Crestfallen Knight because he keeps disappearing at the shrine and I met a new woman who basically arrived long enough to say we we can't be friends for some reason. I also met a stuck up sorcerer who won't come back to my shrine cause I haven't put enough points into Intelligence. The one thing that has struck me as interesting is how everyone pretty much knows what you are and what you're doing, implying that this isn't the first time the Unkindled had to show up and beat down previous champions of the linking of the flame. Makes you wonder how bad things had been going in the past, especially considering how dire everything feels in this game. I mean in earlier games, you're given the impression that nations of non-Undead still exist in distant lands but here, it feels like all that's left are the Hollows, the few sane Undead, and now the Unkindled. End of the World indeed.
My Long Sword is +3 and I'll need Large Titanite to upgrade it. Still debating if I want to bother with infusion just yet, especially because it already looks like they overly complicated it this time around despite the earlier games doing it right. I also obtained an Irythll Long Sword which does Frostbite buildup. Might play with that for a bit since it's not too different from the sword I'm currently using though I'm also thinking about the Uchigatana and the Twin Thiefblades I just acquired as well. I'm still debating about taking up Yoel on his offer to make me a Hollow. I got the pot to the one Cinder Lord so I can make Boss Soul Items and I've opted for the Ring and Lucatiel's Sword. In fact, I'm really happy I acquired most of her gear at this point because she was easily my favorite NPC from DSII. I also have enough armor options at this point that I'm playing around more with how I want to build my character.
I am starting to see what people meant when they said this game is a bit more linear than previous entries, but the actual zone layouts are well enough to not make this an issue. As much as I loved the interconnected world of the first game, I'm not exactly as annoyed with the later entries not following suit. The Farron area isn't quite as obnoxious as people keep making it out to be, so I don't know if I want to say this is DSIII's version of Valley of Defilement/Blighttown/The Gulch just yet. Most of the zones have been pretty cool so far.
Overall, I've been having a blast, even if the game feels much easier than previous titles so far. I remember DSII kicking my ass from out of the gate, but here I've been doing better job and my deaths have purely been either my own fault or the rare "holy crap this enemy has better range than I thought" shenanigans. It does probably help that I don't pick fights with everything I encounter. Those giant crab monsters near the Crystal Sage boss don't look like something I really want to tussle with on a lark, Same with the giant beast wizards in the Farron area that use trees as magic staffs.
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While I didn't take out any bosses last night, I made some good headway into the Farron Woods and Cathedral of the Deep. Farron is hardly the evil swamp level we've seen in previous installments, so I'm totally expecting there to be a location we can call "that one area" granted, Blighttown wasn't really much a of a big deal compared to other poison zones either so maybe we lucked out in this entry. I am having a hard time finding the third fire tower, it's too easy to get turned around in this place.
I took up Yoel on his offer to draw out my power and he's been giving me some free levels which is nice. Not quite sure what the conditions are but not a bad deal so far, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I did use one of the free levels to upgrade my Intelligence by a point which was enough to recruit Mr. Stuck up Vinheim wizard, course he wants scrolls but luckily for him I found one in the Farron Woods, course he's still ungrateful. I also got some coal for Andre, which now makes weapon crafting not as annoying as I thought. I also found one of the Braille Tomes for my blind Cleric which I still need to hand to her.
The Cathedral has been weird, the respawning zombies were super annoying and the parasite creatures even more so thanks to their bleed damage. Thankfully I read somewhere the torch removes them so I've been using that to deal with them. The Giant stage hazard is also interesting if a bit annoying. I wish they had set it up like the Dragon God in Demon's Souls where there were some safe zones but at least the exposed area is mercifully short. I unlocked the two paths back to the bonfire where Gael is groveling. I know he's connected to one of the DLC areas so I've haven't really bothered talking to him cause I don't need to be warped into an endgame zone at this point. Made that mistake in DSII with the Sunken City.
So I'm not sure which boss to go after next. The Farron Woods will likely lead me to the Abyss Walkers from what the Crestfallen Knight keeps saying, while I imagine that the Cathedral of the Deep leads me to Aldritch, since it's kind of his church.
Bloodborne and DS3 both have much easier non-boss content than DS1&2. Bosses in all the games are a mixed bag of difficulty, of course.
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Done quite a bit actually. Took down the Deacons of the Deep which was an interesting if easy boss battle. I ran into Patches at Firelink Shrine and realized he was selling Catarina Armor which I picked up, only to explore the Cathedral of the Deep again and run into Seig's descendant in a well.
Found the last fire switch and battled the Abyss Walkers. Was a cool concept but the fight could have been a bit more difficult. I actually think the first phase is tougher than the second phase. Explored the Catacombs which was a poor man's DS1 Catacombs mixed with Sen's Fortress, though the Red Phantom Invasion with the guy wearing Tarkus Armor and later learning his sword was the freaking Fume Knight sword from DSII was pretty tough. With that said, the bridge part was actually cool and pretty cinematic for this game. Ran into Anri and killed her cohort Horace who went Hollow, though was intrigued to learn layer he may have been working with the Sable Knight chick. Didn't like the look of the worm and the barrage by arrows so I left.
Speaking of which, Yoel died and was replaced with this Sable Knight chick who really wants me to murder my sorcery teacher, which I'm going to ignore. I also ran into the Moon Chick knight who was friendlier this time around so perhaps I didn't tick her off like I thought.
Beat Wolnir which was an eerie but pretty easy fight except for the immortal undead he keeps summoning, luckily the fight is like Nito in DS1 and he had a bad habit of killing his own troops. Decided to explore the lake area again before leaving and not only can I summon my red phantom now, I found what looks like the ruins of Izalith and a freaking hard Demon King boss who whooped my ass a dozen times thanks to his AoE fire attacks. Finally took him down after what felt like a dozen tries and felt kind of bad to learn that demons are nearly extinct now in the series. Course I have a hell of a time against demons, so my empathy was short lived.
Been trying out new weapons as well. Really like the Abyss Walker sword since it comes close to my playstyle from DS1 but the weight is an issue at the moment and I feel like the lighter and more combo friendly Long Sword i started with is still ideal, especially because it's the weapon I'm the farthest along to nearly mastering. I'll probably explore the other part of the demon ruins tomorrow.
Have you not taken your armor off for a while?
I tend to always favor clothing attire that covers my face.
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Today was a very sad day for me. My favorite NPC died cause I messed up their questline somehow. Greirat died in the sewers of Irrithyl :(
I'm honestly really bummed about this because he was my favorite NPC out of the bunch and frankly this game has some really charming NPCs. Some of the best in the Dark Souls series. I don't think I've ever been this sad of letting an NPC die in one of these games since Biorr in Demon's Souls.
I finished exploring most of the Izalith ruins, the only spots I've avoided are the lava pools cause I'm not having a repeat of the Iron Keep BS. I also got reamed big time by the Tsorg, the dude wandering around in Tarkus' armor and using the Fume Knight Ultra greatsword. Course I got the weapon for finally beating him which was nice.
Explored Irrithyl and had a hell of time with the tall knight figures due to my deteriorating parry skills. Helped that Sirris woman fight off Creighton from DSII and got chased by a giant Gaping Rat Dog creature... twice. Fought Ponitff whatshisname and beat him first try but I wussed out and summoned some NPC allies to help me draw his fire.
Found the Irrithyl Dungeon before I discovered Greirat was dead. This place feels like a less creepy version of the Tower of Latria, though the Prison Wardens are still just as lethal and unfair. There were also a ton of Mimics in this place, but I'm at the point where I can kill them quickly. Despaired with Greirat dying, I looked up info on Siegward cause I want to keep him alive as well and discovered he could have saved him. I saved Seigward and I think I found all the keys for the dungeon but there is one room I haven't checked yet near the bottom where a half a dozen wardens are doing a conga dance and even worse, those obnoxiously aggressive Mini-Father Gascione beast mode is in the room next to the place. So I'll attempt to check it out later.
Also smurf the candlestick Mage. By Crom it was like a rematch with that Choir Hunter in Byrgenworth in Bloodborne. Also it was a dick move to leave the Toxicbite Ring in the middle of a toxic swamp. Tomorrow, I'll finish exploring the dungeon cause I read somewhere another NPC is in there, likely the one I can give all of these dark magic tomes to, and then I'm going to check out the Profaned Capital before returning to Irrithyl and going past the church where the boss was fought.
Greirat "spoilers": (SPOILER)he doesn't necessarily die there, but he always dies eventually.
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Not a whole lot actually. Rescued Karla and now can learn some actual dark spells. It's amusing that she's fashioned after Yuria the Witch from Demon's Souls down to having to rescue her from a prison and her trying to talk you out of learning her spells. The implication she's connected to Manus and his "daughters" from DSII is interesting. I'm also amused that the person spouting on about Hollows and mankind's destiny is the one who doesn't teach you dark magic in this game.
This does reminding me, the callbacks to the previous games have been interesting, granted it's a little weird that DSII treats the events of DS1 like it was the Age of Myth only for this entry to treat it more like history, but I feel like it works better here. It's more interesting watching the Pyromancer teacher get excited when you find Tomes from Izalith or the Vinheim Assassin geek out over scrolls from Oolacile or written by Big Hat Logan. It just gives the game more history and connection. Though it is a shame that Miracles don't really have any notable figures. I mean Demon's Souls had Saint Urbain, but DSI had the traitor and the despondent cleric, DSII had the amusing con artist, and DSIII has a cleric that has echoes of Lady Astrea from Demon's Souls, but historically, the only figure the clerics have were either Gwyn or Lloyd, and Gwyn has been strangle absent from name dropping, while Lloyd has been downgraded to historical traitor if I'm reading the lore right. It just seems like DS doesn't give Clerics their due.
Anyway, rescued the Witch, explored the Profane Capital only to learn that the Irrithyll Dungeon was like 85% of it and I probably could have finished it during my last session. Got to see the cool intro with Seigward, got my Storm Ruler, though I think the original was cooler looking, had my easy but pretty memorable fight against Yhorm, my sad farewell afterwards and now I've taken down half of the lazy Lords of Cinder. Also, the Sable Church chick is yammering on about my "wife being ready in Anor Londo" which seems weird to me. I've also noticed that I haven't seen Hawkwood in ages since I beat the Abyss Watchers. I guess I'm going back to Irrithyl to see where to go next because Yhorm's chamber is a dead end. I know I have Aldrich to deal with and I've heard some nightmarish stories about him.
I didn't think Aldrich was particularly hard?
I hate the Yhorm fight, though. It's such a cheap gimmick for a cool dude.
Eh, I love the shout out to Demon's Souls and honestly he's the fourth Giant I've killed already by this point so I wasn't necessarily feeling it myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spuuky
I am debating whether I should hit up the first of the DLC soon. Maybe after I deal with Aldrich and have the Lothric Bros. to contend with. I also know there are two side areas I haven't seen yet such as Dragon Peak something and another Archives somewhere.
The Grand Archives are hardly a side area...
Well I meant it more as in "optional area". There's really only two zones left in the main campaign and barring the DLC, I still have four areas left to explore.
It's definitely not optional.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpuukyIt's definitely not optional.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
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Anor Londo ho! Would it be sacrilegious to say I feel the Anor Londo Archers are way more annoying in this entry? Anyway, explored the place. Did some kind of ceremony in Gwyndolin's old boss chamber/Gwyn's burial chamber that explains a bit more about what happened to Anri. Even though Yuria comes across a bit evil, I tend to always favor the Age of Dark endings, so I'm not exactly bothered I might be helping people some players might call evil.
Friends gave me a tip about Yorshka, and I was able to find her after a bit of trial and error. Sad to find out about the fate of the Giant Blacksmith but thought it was touching that Andre and him were friends. Found Aldrich and got reamed. I started playing around with the Farron Great-sword and discovered that's it's special combo is super effective against the Silver Knights and later learned that Aldrich takes more damage from it due to being a creature of the Abyss. It took quite a few tries to beat him, my main issue was trying to keep tabs on all his magic attacks and learning painfully that the Lifehunt Scythe move is practically a OHKO for my character. I kept trying to take him down quickly like he was a Bloodborne boss but eventually learned that patience was the key. That arrow attack is still kind of BS in terms of damage and its homing ability.
Got transported back to that church in Lothric Castle where the Way of Blue handmaiden was, realized I could move and didn't have to talk to her and took the opportunity to use a homeward bone to go level up and trade in Aldrich's soul. Bought a few items and realized I never actually lit the bonfire from the Rotten Greatwood Tree fight so I headed back there and found a summon sign from Sirris. Got summoned to fight her pain in the ass grandfather and probably died more times to him than Aldrich. I did head back to Aldrich's chamber to explore Gwynevere's room to get the Princess Ring. Overall, it was a nice bit of nostalgia to revisit what was probably one of my favorite areas in Dark Souls 1.
Went back to the hand maiden and as I figured, activated a boss fight with the Dancer and was quickly overwhelmed cause she has way better range than I thought she did. Called it a night after that. I think once I beat her and I assume open up the path to the rest of Lothric Castle, I'm heading back to the Cathedral of the Deep to start the Ashes of Ariandel DLC. I plan on doing the Ringed City DLC after I beat the Lothric boys.
I've had dark souls 2 and 3 for quite a while but never got around to playing more than maybe an hour of ds2.
So I started playing it the other night, and I'm maybe 4-5 hours in. And maybe it's because I actually do enjoy summoning people to co-op with but the game has felt really easy so far. I've died maybe 5 times and one shot every boss until now. Just got to sinners rise though I guess there's some other stuff that one is generally supposed to do first. I don't think I'm a particularly amazing souls player, and I'm sure odds are I'm going to run into some stuff that just wrecks me as I keep going but it's been a weird feeling so far. I feel like I'm flying through the damn game. Even summoning people for bosses in the first one I struggled more than I have so far.
Depending on your class, there are builds that will have a much easier time and then get wrecked in other areas where the build is not optimal. Also depends if you're playing vanilla or scholar of the first sin version. I've heard scholar is more brutal and meant for people who already played vanilla
I actually am playing the scholar version. I'll just bet on me getting beat to trout later on in the game and enjoy my ability to feel good about myself for not getting my ass kicked yet.
Mildly depends on which path you take through the game. DS2 has some of the easiest Souls content in it, but also some of the hardest (although that's mostly reserved for the DLC).
DSII just has a large quantity of gank fights but if you know what you're doing, it's not so bad. I think only two bosses gave me trouble in the early game, the three Sentinels and the trout demon monster in Black Gulch. It's the bosses towards the end that were often more problematic for me and even then a lot of them were optional. My other issue was the silly Soul Level nonsense mechanic that made it nearly impossible to be summoned for me but made it easier for me to get invaded by players who were a few areas ahead of me. The few areas I had the most grief in were often due to invaders blocking my ability to progress and costing me souls. I think my biggest issue in DSII was that parry timing seemed to be changed a bit, especially the counter riposte which for some reason I could never get done right.
For me, I think Demon's Souls is still the hardest entry, the controls are more clunky, infusions are both more important and situational, and the level design is far more sadistic than the Dark Souls series. In terms of boss battles, I feel DS1 and Bloodborne have the most challenging so far. DSII has too many filler bosses and DS3's bosses have been surprisingly easier than what I'm used to in the series but that might change now that I'm towards the end and all I have left are three story bosses and like close to a dozen optional bosses who tend to be more challenging.
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I think the Dancer of the Boreal Valley might be the hardest boss in the game so far. Despite having really good tells, she's pretty aggressive and has longer combos animations and range than I would care for. My biggest issue was that without an ember activated, her grab move in her first phase was a OHKO for me since I rarely put points into HP so a bad roll was all it took to end the fight sometimes. Her and Aldritch have taken the most tries in order to beat, but nothing too infuriating yet.
Reached Lothric Castle proper and explored the King's Garden or something. Met the Consumed King, and he was honestly not too bad outside of some high damage from the charge move and whip attack. The hardest part of the fight was chasing after him cause most of his attacks in his second phase kept launching him across the screen and trying to stay in front of him is too dangerous. A friend mentioned to hit the wall in the back of the area you pick up the Way of the Dragon emote and I found myself in the Untended Graves. I honestly had a tough time killing the Soul Arrow spamming invader than Champion Gundyr and I got to explore one of the eeriest locations in the whole game so far.
Looked up how to find the Archdragon Peak and went there, but called it a night at the first bonfire. I think I'll try to take down the Nameless King because I feel he'll be a nice litmus test for dealing with the DLC. I've seen videos of the Sister Friede fight and I can already say I am both dreading and anticipating it.
Hope you are having a great time with Ds3 ! I just soloed Nameless King on my ng+4 and it was an awesome fight! You'll probably enjoy it as well! As for sister Freide, oh my God she is my favorite boss fight in the game! I don't want to spoil anything for you but just keep on pushing through and have fun!! :) You got this!!
Nameless King has been interesting. I pretty much have the King of Storms fight down and can get to second phase with little issue unless he starts flipping around too much to get the camera screw on me, but for the most part. It's down to a science. The actual fight with him is still a it grueling as a memorize his pattern. I think the move I'm still having issues with is his fast lunge attack on the ground. I can't seem to get the timing right to roll out of the way so I take unnecessary hits. I do appreciate the fact your Bloodstain is located outside of the boss arena.
I did explore more of Lothric Castle and found the boss room. I think it's really interesting that one of the two dragons guarding the main gate is actually killed by a Pus of Man. I haven't really discussed this much but the lore and story elements of this game are pretty top notch. Some of the best in the actual Dark Souls series. Unlike DSII, I have a more clear idea of what I'm trying to do and how most of the locations and bosses fit into the narrative. Been interesting. I might fight this boss in Lothric Castle first and then come back to the Nameless King.
Got thrashed a few more times by Nameless King and opted to fight the boss of Lothric Castle, who turned out to be some knight dude. He would have been more intimidating if for some reason my ability to roll so close to him didn't somehow offset his follow up attack and caused it to completely miss me and still somehow move me right where I needed to be to get a few extra hits. Unlocked the Grand Archives which was not what I thought it would be but this will be interesting.
Went back to Nameless King fight and after dying countless times to him all evening, I hit that Dark Souls Zen moment and finally conquered him. He felt like a redo of Artorias actually except with a mix of the Sephiroth fight from KH1. Artorias because of his lore and his fighting style being brutal and relentless enough that you have to basically keep your distance and take your hits when you can as opposed to being all out aggressive like most of the bosses in this game so far.
He's like Sephy because I honestly felt his A.I. is designed to utilize the game's less than stellar lock-on/camera to his own advantage. The biggest difference from a flawless battle with the first phase versus me taking a few unnecessary hits pretty much came down to whether I could stay in front of his dragon which loved to try to walk over me and make the camera go screwy so NK could take pot shots at me. The biggest contributor to my success in his second phase, outside of finally getting his timing down to dodge, largely came down to how fast I could lock back onto him when he used one of his charging attacks to dive off screen and break my lock on. That and making sure he didn't corner me into one of his arean's invisible walls which screwed with the camera as well.
I did kind of wish I didn't have to fight the dragon every time he beat me into the ground, not because I feel it's unfair but because it actually got boring after awhile and I just wanted to get back to that second round. It was still a pretty cool fight but I'm not sure if I liked it as much as Artorias, Fume Knight, and Lady Maria.
I think I'm going to explore the Grand Archive a bit before I dive into the DLC. I figure I'll try to reach the boss gate which should be the Lothric Boys and then I'll go visit the Painted World. After I beat them, I'll visit the Ringed City, though I'm not quite sure where the entrance to that DLC is.
That's awesome! You did good for sure and I aggree I about the dragon. Sucks we have to keep fighting him every time but he is honestly easy if you didn't know already. You can actually stay by his head and hit him a few times to stagger and reposte him for a quicker death, it's just NK himself takes all the stamina and flask as he punishes you for trying to recharge. But the fight is truly a great one for me , or one of the great fights in the game. Keep posting as I really like to read how's darks souls 3 and updates ! Have fun and stay safe Ashen one!
I am actually working on my sl125 character for ds3 as there will be a dark souls 3 hunger game event and I'm pretty excited about it , if you guys are interested, let me know :)
Explored the Grand Archive, was able to finally acquire the awesome Farram Armor set from DSII, reached what I'm assuming is the final gate across a fortified bridge to the Lothric Boys and then plunged into the DLC.
The Painted World was eerie in DS1 but now it's pretty damn grotesque in this title. Largely imitating the dying world we've seen so much in DSIII, it's interesting seeing a world rotting. I also find it interesting that the new painted world expanded the original ones concept of being a refuge for the unwanted. Two lost order of knights, an entire species of beings, and two outcast members of the Sable Church. It's an interesting concept.
I can say that I don't like tussling with the Millwood Knights, these guy feel like viking versions of the Gwyn's Black Knights, hard to stagger, loads of health, and they can wipe you out in about two hits unless you've been pouring all of your stats into Health and Vitality. The Monster Wolves haven't been friendly either.
Course the enemies I don't engage directly have been the Corvian Knights who play my own style (speed and combo friendly) better than I can since they have about a foot or two on me in range. It's why I keep a bow. The battle against Vinhelm was pretty intense too since he loves to attack and then roll away. Took awhile to finally get him killed but I didn't die either. It was interesting to meet the new Painter as well, and looking up a bit on her, she appears to be part dragon like Priscilla was. Wonder if they are related.
Beyond exploring the Tower where the Millwood knight archers attack and fighting past the town to the Painter, I still haven't encountered the bosses of the world. I know there are two and Sister Friede is one of them, but I haven't the foggiest idea where the other one is or even what it could be. Anyway bummed around the world exploring the mountain behind the Painters prison until I realized it was late and called it a night.
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Okay, so I looked up where the bosses were. I actually unlocked the path to Friede without realizing it, while I had to look up how to reach the Gravetender. The trip down to his location was not fun, since the Millwood Knights apparently compete with the Londo Knights in archery.
He did kick my ass a few times but it mainly came down to trying to kill the bastard before his giant wolf dog truly entered the battle as well as realizing the wolf does not work like the Sif fight and rolling under him will likely have you roll directly into his attack. Oddly enough, the moment the wolf hit second phase he actually became a hell of a lot easier cause he liked to spam the frost breath attack that kept him stationary for once. I learned later that fighting the mini versions of him in the forest and winning apparently drops his health permanently.
After that, I checked out Friede and oh boy is she interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about these sequential cinematic fights with multiple phases and life bars. It was kind of a novelty for the Ludwig fight and my issue with the Nameless King is that the first phase eventually got kind of boring redoing over and over again, so I'm hoping the same thing won't happen with Friede. I do appreciate the fact she has far less health and takes way more damage than NK did, meaning that reaching her final phase might be less tedious. That teleport move is obnoxious though and tends to slow the fight a bit, not to mention it has some obnoxious tracking when you try to dodge the charge move, almost feels like some of Champion Gundyr's shenanigans with his incredible ability to transition from a charge into a right angle turn followed by a halberd attack.
Still, the fight is actually fun and I like her moveset. Nice to actually see Frost as a real element after the main game sort of played with it but didn't really do anything with it. Let's hope that with a bit more practice I can get this fight down in the bag. It's all about minimizing my Estus use in the first phase.
Friede is down and holy hell was her final phase nail biting. DS Maria is right, she does not give you much of an opportunity to heal and very few openings to actually hit her. Thank goodness she has like no poise so when you do get a hit you can combo a bit as long as you don't get too greedy. Still, that fight was pretty fun if a bit insane but likely worked well since my build is light weight and stamina efficient. Overall, I liked the Ashes of Ariadnel DLC. Brought in a bit of cool lore and followed along one of the coolest sidequests in the first game. I kind of wish we could have seen Londor in this game to tell you the truth or maybe even Astora as well.
After that, I checked out the Dreg Heap which resulted in me getting run over by a massive humanity ghose on my first trek and then two-shot by a headless monstrosity on my second. After that I decided I was done for the night. I think I'll deal with the Lothric boys before I face off with the final DLC.
Just read everything and you are doing absolutely great!!! I haven't been on ds3, stuff came up so will be back on to finish my ng+4 . I am last left off at Greg Heap myself, I've actually beaten all the Lord's except the last boss in the game but will do so after I've done all the dlc.
Great job on Sister Freide!! Her cutscene I can never ever get tired of, love everything about it!
Can't wait to hear more of your progress Wolf Kanno! You got this!
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Lothric Boys are dead, and I've obtained all the crowns of the missing Lords of Cinder. I can proceed with the endgame but I'm going to finish the Ringed City DLC first.
The Lothric boys are one of the more challenging non-optional boss battles in the main game but after taking down the Nameless King and Friede, they didn't feel too tough. Finished a few more character quests and my poor Firelink Shrine has become very quiet as of late. I'm being reminded of DS1 and Bloodborne where most of the questlines end tragically for the cast.
In the Dreg Heap, I've grown to despise the weird angels, and I'm desperately trying to find their base tree forms to kill so I can explore the region unmolested. Met a chap named Lapp who squats and talks a lot like Patches but doesn't seem to know who he is. We'll see how this questline works out. I didn't get as far as I would have liked from here though I did discover Earthen Peak which was a surprise. Nice to see a few more nods to Dark Souls II though if I had to pick a locations from DSII, I probably would have chosen either the Iron Keep or one of the DLC locations, but hey, its nice to see some fanservice come that way that isn't just weapons and armor. The fight with one of the Pyromancers of that area caught me off guard but I was able to beat her and then got murdered in an angel crossfire when I tried to cross some roots most likely going the wrong way. This DLC has been interesting and I'm digging the layout.
I'll have to explore more later, but for now I need to backtrack to the Swamp area because I missed a few more treasures and I kind of want to explore a bit more.
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Took some time off from the Ringed City to finish Reinhold's quest cause I really wanted his hat and hey, I got a miracle out of the deal as well. Also, I know a few people feel Rosario is Gwynevere's daughter, but considering she gives you the same miracle for her soul as Gwynevere rewards with her convenant, wouldn't it make sense she is actually Gwynevere? Anyway, after that, I farmed the Dark Wraiths outside the Abyss Watcher bonfire for the rest of their armor pieces and even farmed a few covenant items while I was at it.
Finished the Dreg Heap and took down the Demon Prince. I am very pleased that killing the Angel source permanently rids you of them. I died like twice to the first phase of the Demon fight when it's a two on one battle, then I remembered that Gwyn's Dark Knight weapons get bonus damage against demons. I thanked myself for getting nostalgic when I obtained a Black Knight Greatsword as it was my main weapon in DS1 so when I acquired one, I fully leveled it up despite rarely using it. Sure enough, crushed the first phase, fought the Demon Prince and managed to beat him on the first go.
I'm now in the Ringed City proper and what a welcoming, the archers seemed nearly impossible until I finally noticed the stone placements. Still, trying to kill that giant is a pain and it wasn't helped that I was shortly pushed off a ledge to my death shortly after completing the scenario the first time. I've gotten to the next bonfire and spoke to Lapp again, whom I'm pretty sure is just Patches playing another con on me at this point. I reached a door where some guardian is willing to talk to me but couldn't finish the conversation because the area has a few annoying enemies in the area and they have very large aggro ranges. I almost got killed chatting with her until I noticed the sound and moved the camera to notice a few of them were heading my way. After a few attempts, I decided to call it a night. I really love the Hollow Knight armor and hope I can get more pieces for it. I am also laughing because I didn't realize until awhile ago that my characters outfit looks like Guts outfit from Berserk.
So far, it's been a really interesting location and likely my favorite DLC location in the Souls series as I've always been interested to learn more about the Furtive Pygmy and the Dark Soul during the Age of the Gods. We'll see how far I get the next chance I can play.
I think the Ringed City wins the reward for having the most pain in the ass enemy sets going on for it. The Ringed Knights are not so bad since they take decent damage and it's more of a matter of dodging their attacks but their buffs can be troublesome especially when it changes up their combos. The regular cannon fodder enemies are not so bad as long as you notice them before they notice you with their damn lightning miracles and the ones that cause Curse buildup for just being near them. The headless fatty's became a lot easier once I learned they take ridiculous damage from plunging attacks. Made that staircase area much easier to handle. The cricket men are only annoying because they back off preventing my full combo from landing but they're pretty easy regardless.
Course the two biggest pains in my ass have been the Angels and the Summoner Giants. They can make simple zones into a serious gauntlet of trouble if you're not careful and deal with ASAP. I am annoyed the giants are not perma death like the angels though since they're also basically stage hazards, oh well. Also, it was not cool to bring back the Dragon Armor boss as a regular enemy but it could be worse...The in-game invasions have also caught me off guard, especially since they happen regardless if you're embered or not. I'm only grateful they don't spam estus healing like Hawkwood and Reinhold did. Took down the crossbow guy in the garden area and eccentric Silver Knight Ledo.
I've also noticed I'm being stalked by a dragon again. I'm guessing this is the Midir the one NPC told me about that she wanted me to put out their misery. All I'm doing is trying not to have flashbacks to the Ancient Dragon and Kalameet from the previous entries. My biggest sad moment is that the damn Ringed Knights will just not drop their main armor, I keep getting their helmets, gauntlets and leggings, but not the cool main armor with the Darksign on it. I did get their cool weapons but not their shields.
So far it's been a slow process, having found the +3 variation of the Gold and Silver Serpent Rings, I've been able to amass quite a few items and souls but it's just as easy to lose all the souls if I'm not paying attention. Progress has been slow especially since it appears my only options on where to go involve fighting the Mini-Boss Dragon Armor or head in the direction to Midir.
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Decided to take on the Midir and got roasted on the bridge but I at least found the puzzle that allowed me to finish Lapp's quest which a friend told me about. I didn't appreciate having to fight past two Ringed Knights and one of those annoying summoning giants. After making my way to the mines, I saw the ending to Lapp's quest and reached the bonfire.
I also had to laugh because while the narrow staircase would normally make the Mimic and Red Phantom Invader particularly difficult, both of them accidentally ran off the ledge to their deaths, so lucky break there. Fought Midir on the second bridge and took him down with my bow. Went back to Shira to report it and she said he's not dead but resting the chasm like Kalameet and then gave me the instructions to go find him. I fought my way to the final tower where a voice tells me not to move forward. Decided to call it a night. I still haven't been able to get the Ringed Knights to drop their main armor :cry:
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Finally, after dying a bajillion times, I took down Darkeater Midir. He was a pretty cool boss who just ridiculous attack power and a few attacks that turn his whole body into a hit box making him pretty lethal. At first I was using a ring for fire defense and the Farron Greatsword to fight him but I just wasn't making any headway. Finally, tonight I switched to a +10 Lightning Astora Straight Sword, but the damage wasn't too good so I tried my main weapon, my +10 Refined Long Sword and the damage wasn't too different from the Farron Greatsword, it just took two hits instead of one and I had plenty of stamina left since my usual sword is 8.5 units lighter. I brought some Gold Pine Resin which I had to farm some souls for an sure enough my damage was better than with the greatsword. I took him down and didn't even notice I still had the Covetous Serpent rings still equipped instead of all my defensive rings.
Went to the church and got murdered by Halflight and his annoying Painted Guardians cause I somehow have become inept at parrying. Called it a night. Course I don't have much left of the DLC to go.
Soon I'll actually get to read about your Dark Souls 3 journey. I finished 2. It definitely got more challenging though not near Dark Souls 1 from my play through. Missed a bit of stuff though. Skipped the DLC but I also knew I was skipping the DLC. I kinda wanted to just finish up the last of it because I really wanted to move on to 3. Figured it best to not let my dying attention keep me from finishing it. Still a good game though and I'll go back and do the NG+ I think once I've sated my DS3 appetite. The worst thing I can really say about the game is it's not as good as Dark Souls, and if that's your biggest flaw you're doing all right.
I'm up to the Road of Sacrifices now. Right by all the tree branch wielding undead and the crabs. Keep getting invaded at the worst possible times it seems but oh well. Such is Dark Souls. Did spend a good 15 minutes dueling one dude before he finally finished me off. That was tense and satisfying in all the right ways. I'm loving the hell out of the game. The somewhat faster paced combat feels so good to me. Pretty much everything you do feels more satisfying. And on top of everything it seems to be back to the sort of interconnected world and being able to see things in the distance that you've either come from or will go to at some point an hour or two later maybe. That was always one of my favourite parts of Dark Souls. And I think all Dark Souls games have at least had their moments of looking really damn good just because the art style they've had is so strong, but sweet zombie jesus this game is so smurfing gorgeous. I'm dying for the weekend to come so I can just sit down and play most of the day.
Oh man, to be honest I felt the DLC for Dark Souls 2 was the best part of the game. I also wanted to just jump to 3 but that DLC kept me hooked. Yeah, DS3's combat has taken some cues from Bloodborne in being a bit speedier and aggressive. I remember in Yahtzee's review for it how he mentioned the game tends to emphasize speed over power and I honestly agree as I've had a few battle go very differently by sticking to a lighter weapon, despite the fact I traditionally use Greatswords in these games. Glad yo hear you're having fun though.
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GAME. SET. MATCH.
Finished Dark Souls 3 this evening.
Halflight was pretty easy once you learn not to summon help and to kill those annoying Guardian Painting helpers ASAP. After that, I took out that Filianore Knight and got one of the craziest weapons in the game. Then it came down to Gael. Honestly, he was way easier than I was expecting. Especially once I learn he was weak to poison which made this fight way more manageable as I was able to get to the later phases faster. With that said, it was a pretty epic battle. After that, all I had was the Lord of Cinder.
Cinder was obviously not much of a challenge after doing the DLC. Though his powered up second phase was interesting and a nice sendoff for the series as a whole. I obtained the Ursurp the Fire Ending, because I pretty much always choose to end the Age of Fire in all of the Dark Souls games cause I honestly feel Gwyn is a dick.
My MVP weapon was actually my starting Longsword which I eventually infused into a Refined Longsword. The damage was admirable, the ability to buff it was a lifesaver, and it is incredibly combo friendly and can break poise better than you think it would. Like seriously, anytime I tried to use a new more fancy weapon I quickly dropped it in favor of this beast of a weapon. I never bothered with magic outside of dabbling in a few pyomancies but even that was more for options than because I built my character towards it.
My MVP Ring was the Carthus Milkring which was basically Bloodborne's Hunter's Bone without the Silver Bullet cost making it even better. Since I tend to play light speedier builds, any item that can increase my dodge roll invincibility frames is a godsend.
Favorite Armor was a toss up between the Abyss Watcher armor and the Ringed Knight Armor. Fashion souls indeed.
My overall assessment of the game is a bit mixed. From a Lore standpoint, this is my favorite entry of the Dark Souls series. The setting and bosses were interesting and the DLC didn't disappoint. I didn't mind the game taking some cues from Bloodborne, ythe faster combat was welcomed and I felt it translated into more exciting boss battles. The locations were pretty snazzy as well though I still feel like a few locations felt more like Bloodborne areas that got cut such as Irythill of the Boreal Valley and the Carthus Catacombs definitely felt like an unused but better designed Chalice Dungeon. I think this game has my favorite set of NPC s as well even if the witch chick kind of feels more like a Demon's Souls Easter egg instead of an actual person. The rest of the NPCS had interesting stories and I honestly was really saddened when Greirat died, I'm still freaking upset about that cause I loved that dude. While I stuck to my starting weapon for most of the game, the weapons selection was actually quite nice and the weapon art mechanic was quite nice. As per usual with FROM Software and this franchise, the DLC was quite excellent.
My biggest gripe with the game? Probably the fact it is one of the easiest entries in the series yet. While I clocked in quite a bit of time, I feel a good chunk of that was just do to the massive amount of secrets and content this game contains as opposed to DS1 where a third of my time was me hitting a brick wall with a boss or a particular area. I probably had more issues with Red Phantoms and certain enemy types than I did with overall areas and boss battles and I was astounded how many bosses I took down on a first try. I'm hardly a Souls expert here either, I've only played each entry once except Demon's Souls. I'm sure for someone who has never played the series this entry would be quite challenging but honestly I think only the Dancer and Midir were able to kill me so much I lost count. Also, Farron Woods is easily the nicest and most pleasant swamp level FROM Software has ever made. I almost feel like it was an apology for the BS of previous games. Granted this isn't a deal breaker but it is a bit sad that several bosses are more memorable for me due to the spectacle than because of the challenge. With that said, I actually kind of like the game a little better than Dark Souls 1 simply due to the lore.
So let's do the stat rundown:
- Favorite Boss: (Main Game) Abyss Watchers and Aldritch (DLC) Sister Friede and Gael
- Most Difficult Boss: (MG) Dancer of the Boreal Valley and Nameless King (DLC) Darkeater Midir and Sister Friede
- Easiest Boss: Deacons of the Deep or Halflight.
- Easy Boss I embarrassingly died to more than I should have: Halflight and the Rotten Greatwood Tree.
- Super Hard Boss I found pretty easy: Gael and Sulyvan
- NPC Invader who can go Smurf themselves: Tsorig and Hodrick
- Favorite Covenant: N/A
- Favorite NPC: Greirat, Gael, and Anri
- Favorite location: Lothric Castle, Grand Archives, Catacombs of Carthus, Ringed City, Painted World of Ariandel, and the Archdragon Keep
- Favorite Easter Egg/Reference: Storm Ruler and revisiting Anor Londo, I also still love the Farram Armor set.
- Least favorite Zones: Smouldering Lake and Profaned Capital.
- Favorite Lord of Cinder: I honestly liked all of them.
- Thing I need to work on for my next playthrough: Parry skills.
I'll probably think of more as time goes on, but I may take a break from the series for a bit, unless the call to Bloodborne gets the better of me... :shifty:
I hate to generally toot my own horn, but beep beep, I was right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jowy
I beat Aldrich then promptly died thanks to some lingering homing orbs right after I got his soul and such. No big deal, just need to go collect all of the 70k+ souls I lost. Immediately die to the first silver night before I can get there. I ran through a wide variety of emotions in the 5 minutes after beating him.
Oh man, I know that feeling. :soothe:" smilieid="509" class="inlineimg" border="0">
I probably could have sprinted past them and been fine. Especially with the bonfire in the boss room to reset anyone who might follow me that far. Oh well. It's not Dark Souls if you don't occasionally lose everything to enemies that aren't THAT hard.
I saw someone with an Ornstein and Smough tattoo on each forearm today. Game is spiffy.