Dark Souls III: Witty Title Pending

[Snowbluff]

Streaming Bloodborne at twitch.tv/snowbluff

EDIT: Except not because I'm sick an hungry and I can't do it, I just can't play when I have to be up in the morning! Stupid adulthood.



Anyway, thanks for following Technokami. I'll try again tomorrow where I'm hopefully less sick and tired. 9 central, DST.

[AtS]

7 hours later, still on the first boss.

...Yeah, that's about right.

Game thus far is amazing, although I'm not that thrilled with some of the mechanics simplifications. Main standout in the positives is level design, which is just absurdly good. Main negative is the load times, especially when getting stuck on a particular section and dying repeatedly.

Exactly this, except I'm ok with the mechanics simplifications - they're trying to push players to use a different fighting style than the rest of the series by rewarding aggression. It's a nice change of pace.

[Snowbluff]

Well, I feel like I'm playing a game with only 1 playstyle as opposed to the crap ton in DkSII. Which is fine, game. You can have only as few options as most of the crap on the market.

I hope this doesn't represent a trend in the future games.

[AtS]

Well, I feel like I'm playing a game with only 1 playstyle as opposed to the crap ton in DkSII. Which is fine, game. You can have only as few options as most of the crap on the market.

I hope this doesn't represent a trend in the future games.

I'm not far enough in yet to decide if it makes me feel restricted. I just got to the first boss last night, but from what I've seen there's still lots of different weapon types, like the huge Kirkhammer with superarmor frames, or the cane for finesse attacking and sidestep dodging. Plus, the trick weapons transforming as part of a combo adds a whole new layer of depth. I feel like the only playstyle that got removed was shield turtling, which was a good thing.

I don't think this is going to represent a trend for the rest of the series. Bloodborne just has a different theme than the Souls iterations, and its gameplay reflects this - that doesn't mean it's the new series paradigm.

[Snowbluff]

Going from Charge Blade from Monster Hunter to Thread Cane seems like a much less flexible style. Usually, I have no reason to switch mid fight, and I'll usually stick with one transformation unless I **** up firing my pistol for the hundredth time.

[Rodin]

There's definitely a lot less options now. Both heavy shield use and heavy armor tank builds are gone. Magic builds of all types are gone. Right now, there are two or possibly three builds - heavy strength, heavy dex, and maybe heavy firearms, but the effectiveness of guns thus far doesn't leave me with much expectation there. The number of weapons also seems to have dipped sharply, although that's more a case of removing duplicates with similar stats.

I'm planning on writing a more comprehensive review when I'm stuck at work this weekend. The game is overall pretty fantastic, but there's some nitty gritty stuff that doesn't sit well.

[AtS]

There's definitely a lot less options now. Both heavy shield use and heavy armor tank builds are gone. Magic builds of all types are gone. Right now, there are two or possibly three builds - heavy strength, heavy dex, and maybe heavy firearms, but the effectiveness of guns thus far doesn't leave me with much expectation there. The number of weapons also seems to have dipped sharply, although that's more a case of removing duplicates with similar stats.

I'm planning on writing a more comprehensive review when I'm stuck at work this weekend. The game is overall pretty fantastic, but there's some nitty gritty stuff that doesn't sit well.

I've been playing blind and I didn't know that there wasn't any magic spells anymore. I just assumed I hadn't found any yet - there's an Arcane stat after all. I guess that does eliminate quite a few options.

[Snowbluff]

Okay, so I made it to the first boss. I managed to get it to a third on my first try. I think I think I need to restock on ammo and fire before trying again.

What did you guys start with? I'm the skill dude with a thread cane.

[AtS]

Okay, so I made it to the first boss. I managed to get it to a third on my first try. I think I think I need to restock on ammo and fire before trying again.

What did you guys start with? I'm the skill dude with a thread cane.

I'm also just to the first boss. I started with high arcane and the threaded cane.

[TechnOkami]

Pro combat tip for Bloodborne: If you're attacking an enemy and kill it while you have a little bit of your health bar in the yellow, you can keep attacking the target for the health return until the "blood/souls sound moving into your blood/souls inventory" chimes. I don't know what to actually call it.

[Snowbluff]

Pro combat tip for Bloodborne: If you're attacking an enemy and kill it while you have a little bit of your health bar in the yellow, you can keep attacking the target for the health return until the "blood/souls sound moving into your blood/souls inventory" chimes. I don't know what to actually call it.

I have a better way of saying that I was thinking of while playing.


"Mutilate and mangle the dying bodies. Their pain will sustain you."

Not that it's very helpful for me. I've been maxed out on vials most of the time.

[Rodin]

I have a better way of saying that I was thinking of while playing.


"Mutilate and mangle the dying bodies. Their pain will sustain you."

Not that it's very helpful for me. I've been maxed out on vials most of the time.

An important thing to note about the vials (and items in general) which was not readily apparent:

Whenever you get an item above your carry max, it automatically goes into storage. For most things, this isn't terribly important, but for vials and bullets it's crucial. What this means is that you can have 20 vials and 20 bullets and expend every last one of them, and then re-pop with 20 of each. If you have max on you and 99 in storage, it flat won't let you pick it up - very annoying since my current build doesn't use bullets at all.

Of course, if you don't[ have any stored up, then you have to run around with no vials at all until you get some more. Fortunately, there are a few really good areas to farm the things and I can usually get back up to 15-20 within 5-10 minutes. Or you can just sell a load of useless stuff and buy them, but the vial cost scales with level so it'll still be really freaking expensive. I think 10 Vials for me right now is around 8000 souls blood whatever it's called.

I started out as a strength-based character wielding the threadcane. I quickly realized that it was scaling in the wrong direction and swapped to a more strength-based weapon.

Starting to reach the endgame now I think - and I think I've made it past the "Shrine of Amana" equivalent level, since the difficulty has dropped back down a bit after a controller-throw inducing horror level. I did, however, just have my ass whipped like a naughty puppy by one of the bosses. First time in a while I've gone through all my pots and still had the boss at half health. Maybe it's time to work on some more Chalice dungeons instead...

[Snowbluff]

Oh hey, I found another boss!

... dammit... I found another boss. D:

EDIT: Killed the first boss. I correctly used the gun for the power hit and everything. Tons of damage.

I'm not sure about the thread cane though. Whip mode is kind of alright, I guess, but the cane DPS seems a lot better.

Spoiler: Wait, why did I do that?

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Is there a reason to killing the Cleric boss, or will the door open after I pull a lever?

[Thanatos 51-50]

Spoiler: Wait, why did I do that?

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Is there a reason to killing the Cleric boss, or will the door open after I pull a lever?

Spoiler: Reasons

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The Cleric Beast drops a badge that unlocks the ability to buy Church-themed gear from the Hunter's Dream.
Also: Blood Echoes and a lamp

[Snowbluff]

Spoiler: Reasons

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The Cleric Beast drops a badge that unlocks the ability to buy Church-themed gear from the Hunter's Dream.
Also: Blood Echoes and a lamp

Spoiler: OKay

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OOOH a Str hammer for my Skill character, a pistol he can't lift, and a lamp to nowhere. T.T

EDIT: Btw, my roommate has a Kirkhammer. IT"S AWESOME!

[Rodin]

So, I beat the game last night. I know, I know. It took me around 30 hours, with a bit of that time spent exploring Chalice dungeons. I'm also fairly sure there's a significant number of side areas I've missed. New Game+ is definitely in, although I'm not planning on doing that just yet and instead want to explore Chalice dungeons on him while going through the game more thoroughly on a new character with a different build.

Anyhoo, here's my review. I'm going to try and keep it spoiler-free as possible, but I'm going to spoiler it anyway just in case you don't want to know the details about some of the game mechanics.

Spoiler: Bloodborne review

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Overall, I'm mightily impressed. The game is more of a Souls game than DSII was, that's for sure.

Level Design

This is by far the best thing about Bloodborne. The atmosphere of it is fantastic. The city in particular looks amazing, while the outside areas are more of a classic feel - solid, but not quite as atmospheric as the city itself. Gone is the horrible Bonfire teleporting system of Dark Souls 2, which basically divided the game into bite size chunks. It was rare in DSII for me to be worried about dying due to losing progress - the bonfires were just too close together. Also, since the areas were so divided there was no reason to make the level design make sense. The Old Iron Keep that started sinking into lava which was located above a giant windmill comes to mind. Instead, there are shortcuts. Shortcuts everywhere. It's not uncommon for a single area to have 3-4 different shortcuts all interconnecting with one another, and there are numerous circular paths that have me wandering down them and suddenly realizing that I just returned to an earlier area which I hadn't fully explored.

It also eliminates my biggest complaint with Dark Souls 2 (and to a lesser extent DS1), which is linearity. DS2 had this weird thing where there are 4 branching paths right at the beginning and then...that's it. You progress linearly down a particular path, and if you get stuck or need an item from elsewhere you teleport over to the other branch and linearly progress down it. DS1 had a similar problem, especially later in the game once you got the Soul Vessel. For Bloodborne, I got lost repeatedly. I skipped bosses accidentally. Once you get to a certain point in the game, there are at least 3 bosses you could theoretically take on in any order, and only one of them is required to open up an additional choice of pathways.

This does lead itself to a bit of a problem though - "where the bleep do I go now?" syndrome. There were about 3 occasions where I literally had no clue where an area I hadn't explored was, and many more where I had no clue which way I was expected to explore. I spent more time than I like to think about running in circles in an area trying to get to the other side of a shortcut door, and sometimes I never did find out how. It's an unfortunate side effect of how open the world is. Overall, it's an acceptable problem, but I still would have really liked an NPC that could remind me where my next objective lay.

Lore/Story

Not going to be a huge section, because I don't typically get that involved in the stories of the Souls games. Bloodborne definitely had a lot better character than DSII, and I got the feeling of a well-realized world. There's obviously a ton of lore out there, and loads that I'm missing in the usual way of the Souls series. My one complaint is that the main plotline was pretty much incomprehensible from the first playthrough. It's part of why I got lost so much - I didn't know what my character's objective was, which made it difficult to understand where I needed to go or why I needed to care about what was going on. I still don't know what it was all about, but I'm hoping subsequent playthroughs will shed some light. Ultimately, it's a Souls game so I'm expecting this sort of thing, but it still kinda bugs me that I had so little idea about what I was doing.

Gameplay

I went with a strength-based build that ultimately merged into a Quality build once it became apparent that Skill would give me better returns than my diminishing-returns affected Strength. My weapon through most of the game was a Greatsword, so I rarely used the guns.

The new mechanics themselves work quite well. I'm now able to dodge and dive quite well and the rhythm of combat is solid. I was very worried about the lack of a shield, but I've found that I don't miss them terribly. Gaining HP back from making attacks is an awesome mechanic and encourages aggression in really weird ways. For one large enemy my tactic is to pistol-shot him right as he hits me - we both take damage, but he gets riposted and I'm able to quick-roll to my feet and restore the entirety of my lost HP with a single Visceral Attack.

I was originally concerned about the guns, because on my first character they did very little other than allow a riposte and the Greatsword simply did a better job used conventionally. On my second character though I've invested points into them and it's far more effective. Funny, that. The discovery that guns don't use Stamina helped a great deal, as did the discovery that so-called "Emergency Bullets" that you trade HP for give the standard Rally window. This means you can wait for an enemy to whiff, quickly generate 5 bullets, then combo them to re-gain the lost HP, and once you're out of stamina you can then empty your 5 emergency bullets into them. In some cases this can even further stagger them while your stamina recovers enough for you to back away, although I've yet to really meet enemies tough enough for that to work (and I'm a bit terrified of attempting this against bosses).

Runestones act basically like rings, and the only downside is that you can't change them on the fly. They do have a noticeable effect, though, and I have no real complaints about how they were implemented. Bloodstones are similar to weapon enchantments and the weirder varieties of Titanite. I'm rather in love with the system as there appear to be a LOT of options and the Bloodstones themselves are pretty randomized - the best ones I wound up using were mostly random drops. The ability to switch them around freely is also nice. What I don't like is the naming convention. It isn't clear at all what most Bloodstones will do, and working out which Bloodstone is better is often quite difficult. I also recieved a lot of them, resulting in a very cluttered inventory. You can sell them at least.

Simplification

Now, we get to the fly in the ointment. Magic is completely missing. Armor cannot be upgraded. Weapons only have one upgrade path. There are fewer weapons. Fewer stats. No shields. I'll address these one at a time.

The most galling one for me is the lack of magic. It's an entire playstyle wiped out, and I can't really find any justification for it. It was obviously a stylistic design choice, because there ARE magic-using enemies in the game, and they use classic Souls spells. Spells I've positively identified coming from previous games include Soul Arrow, Homing Soulmass, Combustion, Fire Whip, Firestorm, and Poison Mist (effect from non-human enemies, but still the same spell effect). That isn't including new spells used by human enemies which clearly could have been used. The only reason I can think of for leaving it out is that Magic is too easy, which strikes me as a cop-out.

Armor missing its upgrades doesn't bug me that much. It wasn't something I emphasized in previous games anyway. I do take a bit of issue with the fact that the first set of armor I found had physical defense that was petty much unmatched by anything else I found...and the one set which did had lower magic resists. There was only rarely reason to change armor sets, and then only to build a specific resist. On the plus side, Fashion Souls Borne is in full effect. I went through the whole game wearing a top hat because it was swanky and didn't have a hugely detrimental effect on my stats. I would definitely have liked to see more differentiation in the armors though. I never got that "OOOOH!" feeling like when I would find Havel's armor or a nice set of Sorcery gear.

Weapons having one upgrade path wasn't a problem, mainly because of the Bloodstones. That socketing system totally replaces the forging system, and the regular fortifying of weapons almost seems like a holdover. In particular, the scaling of them wasn't particularly good - I didn't find any third-tier materials until very late in the game indeed, and I was suddenly buried in the stuff before finding the top-tier material almost immediately. It wasn't a huge deal because of the Bloodstones, but still unsettling.

The fewer weapons I'm torn about. On the one hand, I don't really miss the 500 iterations of the Greatsword that DSII was throwing at us. On the other hand...there really are a LOT fewer weapons, guys. I think my completed run had 9 or 10 available. Granted, you could split them in two and most of the weapons were available, but there were noticeable absences. Curved swords are pretty much absent barring one special weapon, and traditional pokey Spears also appear to have gotten the chop. On the flip side, the weapons we got are darned awesome. The transformations aren't much to talk about, but it does function as being able to draw a second weapon which was standard in the Souls games anyway. I typically stuck with one form, then backed off and transformed for a special task. I would have liked to see a better variety of weapons, but not to the same extent as DSII. I just think they overdid the simplification a little bit here.

On the stats, I actually liked the simplified stats. No more BS Survival stat which did the poorly explained Agility mechanic. No more Attunement stat, and no split between Arcane and Faith, although that last is soured greatly by the lack of much use for Arcane as a stat in general. The one stat I do greatly miss is Endurance/Carry Weight. That's what made the Armors so interesting in the previous games - you were constantly weighing up how much you, well, weigh, and how much maneuverability you were willing to pay for being heavily armored.

This combines with the lack of shields. Yes, while playing I don't miss shields. But, I do miss the playstyle choice that has been taken away from me. I like playing as a heavily armored knight. I liked doing a lightly armored sword-and-board character that would take a couple hits on the shield before rolling away and countering. There's a huge variety of playstyles that are just...missing. And I'm certain this is going to affect the replayability. It's not a deal-breaker by any means, but I just can't see myself having nearly as many characters for Bloodborne as I've had for Dark Souls I and II.

Chalice Dungeons

I'm still getting into these, but they seem pretty neat. They're randomly generated dungeons with 3 bosses each, and the difficulty gets progressively harder as you go down and get additional chalices. Almost all of the loot is additional materials for making new dungeons, as well as the occasional Bloodstone and various "standard" loot like vials, bullets, molotovs, etc. I did one time find a weapon, a duplicate of one that I already owned, but I have no idea how common that is. Treasure gets better the harder the dungeon, and also better the deeper you go. You can also add additional effects to the dungeon, like sticking in a lady that summons enemy players into it.

The design is overall pretty impressive. The dungeons are well laid out for being procedurally generated, and I've gotten outright lost more than once. They do follow certain standard patterns and you can often identify where to go next as a result. Biggest complaint thus far is that the room variety is a little bit low and the different chalices don't use a different tileset. Overall though I'm hugely impressed by what they put in as basically a gimmicky second game. I'm still encountering new bosses that I haven't met before (many of which outright aren't in the game proper and are exclusive to the Chalice dungeons), and they mostly show the same high standard of main game bosses. There are occasionally cases where the boss is simply a mini-boss class enemy that has been tarted up a bit into a boss (the Giant Boars being one of the worst offenders), but these are outnumbered by the bosses that kicked my ass.

I'm really interested in trying out the deeper dungeons. I did get a unique armor set from one of the bosses, so I'm curious to see what lies further in. Also, the Chalice dungeons don't abide by New Game+ rules and some of the mid-tier dungeons I'm already hitting are at New Game+ levels of difficulty, so it's obviously meant to be the end-game content. I just wish the treasure was a bit better, but I guess they can't have you outshining the stuff in the main game.

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And, that's it. Hopefully comprehensive. Even with it's flaws its the best Souls game I've played. They nailed the level design and gameplay, and those are the most important things. Only complaint is replayability thanks to a lack of weapon/armor/spell variety, but I'm hopeful that the Chalice Dungeons will mitigate that somewhat. It'll also be really fascinating finding out what the community learns - most of the time when I've tried to look up something really obscure (mostly relating to Chalice Dungeons), there simply hasn't been any information on it yet.

I want to say something pithy like "now Excuse me, there are Beasts to kill" or something, but unfortunately I'm stuck at work for the next 6 hours. Boooo!

[Thanatos 51-50]

So, I've been mostly avoiding this thread out of a desire to play through [Bloodborne] blind, like I've never done with a Souls game, but I'm having a TECHNICAL ISSUE!
It can be summed up thusly: I can't get my PS4 to connect to the Bloodborne servers, so I can't actualy play in Online mode. Every time I boot it up in online mode, I run around for a bit, with no message, no phantasams, and no anything before the game gives up, throws its hands in the air, and bootts me to the title screen 20-30 minuets later.
Is this a known issue? Is there a known solution?

[Snowbluff]

For the record, we're not spoiling anything. I've been very careful.

Online mode hasn't given me any trouble.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Quick video of problem. Will ruin a blind play of a relatively early area. I feel like I'm probably closing in on the third boss, for general location idea:

Spoiler

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WRD...ature=youtu.be

[Snowbluff]

Yeah, you're near the third boss. I just fought for the first time. It's a tough one.

EDIT: Also, you've no top hat to go with your gentleman's flogging cane and gentleman's dueling pistol. Where are your manners?

[Thanatos 51-50]

You seem to have missed the important bit. That was supposed to be online mode.

Also: Hats make my head itchy.

EDIT: Also Also: That's the Repeater Pistol. Gentlemanly dueling is for scrubs.

[Snowbluff]

You seem to have missed the important bit. That was supposed to be online mode.

Also: Hats make my head itchy.

EDIT: Also Also: That's the Repeater Pistol.

Isn't that the one that wastes ammo? Guns are only good for one thing, and that's staggering. If you want more damage, use the gun correctly and you'll one shot everything.

Gentlemanly dueling is for scrubs.

*monocle pops out* Outrageous!

[Rodin]

Isn't that the one that wastes ammo? Guns are only good for one thing, and that's staggering. If you want more damage, use the gun correctly and you'll one shot everything.

My second character is testing this, actually. I'm not investing very much at all in Strength/Dex and instead going for the Bloodtinge and Arcane stats. I'm curious to see how a caster build works. So far it's been impossible to rely entirely on the Repeater, but the high scaling does mean that I'm getting solid damage off it and for most really tough enemies simply emptying my pistol into them does the trick.

The main problem I can already see looming is that Bloodstones which affect guns are quite rare, and they also aren't as powerful. This badly affects the scaling. I'm hoping to put one of the more specialized guns to use for this (and maybe aid it with inventory items for bosses), but I'm dubious.

For a standard build though, the best weapon I've seen so far is the basic pistol. What matters is speed of firing and ammo conservation (to give you more stagger chances), and all your damage comes from your melee weapon. The Blunderbuss seems like more of a PvP weapon.

The funny result of my build thus far is that my torch does more damage than my axe.

[Snowbluff]

The torch is a really nice touch. The beast dudes will avoid you if you carry it. IDK if it actually lowers their attack rate, but it's nice. It does tiny amounts of damage with my build, though.

My cane does have Arcane Scaling, it seems. Weird.

I get the feeling that gun based play styles aren't supposed to be viable. This is kind of sad, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is patch or a new weapon is included in DLC.

[Rodin]

I think the reason it scales with Arcane is that there is no way to change the scaling of weapons in this game. There isn't an equivalent of Green Titanite. However, there are Bloodstone Gems which DO change the type of damage the weapon deals, and I believe the Arcane stat affects that.

...In theory, anyway. I still need Bloodstones of the appropriate type to change the damage over to Fire/Arcane. Then we'll see how effective it is.

I do know that Arcane doesn't appear to affect damage on weapons which deal no Magic damage, even if they scale on Arcane. Either that or there's a GUI bug that isn't showing it.

[Thanatos 51-50]

For those interested: I did switch back to the Hunter's Pistol, primarily for ammo conservation reasons.
Also: I bought a neat hat.

[Rodin]

Think I'm giving up on my gun run. I was fighting an NPC Hunter with a Shotgun and it just really drove home the problem: Ammo.

He danced around at range firing volley after volley. On the only gun I've found that does even remotely decent damage, I've got 10 shots to last me from the bonfire to the boss or wherever I'm going. And even conserving ammo for one tough enemy, guns just don't make a big enough difference.

With their only real purpose being to stagger, I don't think putting points in the Bloodtinge stat is worth it at all. Even with Bloodtinge as my highest stat and my gun my best upgraded weapon, the melee weapons still outshine them.

Arcane seems to work okay though. It's still in kind of a weird spot, since getting weapons to deal Arcane damage is a late-game situation and there's not really anything else to tide you over.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Have you tried the rifle spear? How does that work out?

[Rodin]

Have you tried the rifle spear? How does that work out?

Never even seen it, actually. Must have missed it on both runs through.

Edit: Since doing otherwise would mean the end up my run, I looked up where it was and went and grabbed it. Great weapon, poor gun. "Rifle spear" is a bit of a misnomer, it's more like Rifle Shotgun. It's handy and does a better job than the Repeater Pistol, but the problem is clear: Bloodtinge damage is subject to much greater damage reductions than physical damage. At least most of the time, anyway.

On the Spear, physical damage and Bloodtinged are equal. By happy coincidence, my damage bonuses to both physical and Bloodtinged are also equal on it. If I point-blank someone with the Spear, they take ~30-40 damage. If I stab them in the same range, they take close to 100 damage.

Again, it's hard to find the argument in favor of upgrading that stat unless the late-game scaling really makes a major difference.

On a completely different topic, I've learned that badly damaged weapons do horrible damage. Even if your weapon doesn't tell you to repair it, repair it!

[Thanatos 51-50]

Mechanical Question RE: Rifle Spear:
I'm assuming that the "Trick" button fires a shot instead of actually changing the weapon's form. Is this a correct assumption, or does it remove your left-hand weapon entirely in favour of the spear?