What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[Lord Raziere]

I think the point he's making is that the game isn't really a Dark Souls sort of game, and trying to play it like one doesn't work. As far as I understand it, it doesn't even have the "die once and you have to repeat the entire section" thing, because you get at least one free resurrection (hence the "Shadows Die Twice" part of the title).

Indeed, at least one person I've seen has said that its the Anti-Dark Souls and that its specifically punishes you for playing Sekiro like you play Dark Souls. while it still requires skill and such to do right, its a very much offensive and parrying game where Dark Souls is generally a defensive dodge-rolling game. unlike in dark souls its perfectly possible to rush the whole zone your going through to kill every single enemy as fast you can before moving on to kill the next one in a run and gun style as long as you know how the zone works and what to expect, which you do stealthily assessing the area and figuring out the best path.

for example my recommendation for dealing with any lone ranged enemy: speed up to them as fast as you can and kill them before they can fire, if they do fire, dodge but give them as little chance for them to fire off shots as possible.

the game is a blend of stealthily carefully killing things in one blow like a stealth game with bursts of quick rapid fire violence where you kill the enemy as offensively as you can, make combat as short as possible, and give the enemies as little chance to respond as possible. if they do, deflect. if you haven't played Dark Souls you might even do better than people who have played those, because muscle memory and different mindset make you do a lot of mistakes and I had to earn my wins through hard won learning of how the games works from scratch.

though in some ways dark souls is easier, because you can't be patient in Sekiro, when you fight you have to be constantly moving and firing off chains of actions and it still punishes you for your mistakes and you can make a lot with how fast and furious you need to be. get too greedy and they will wreck your face, you have to actually deflect while attacking because the enemies will attack you back while you do so. its more of a mix than "block until vulnerability, kill" which is the basic strategy of dark souls. the basic strategy of Sekiro is "stab in the back if you can, if you can't, attack as furiously as possible while throwing in deflects while you do so and hopefully you get it get right amid the flurry of motion that is combat." which is of course scary and unintuitive to the average dark souls player, because they've been conditioned across three games to see that as suicidal.

[Razade]

Anyway, back on topic: I finished Axiom Verge. I don't really have anything new to say about it, but it was good. Now I'm starting on Hollow Knight - usually I wouldn't play two games this similar back to back, but that giveaway threw off my lineup. While they're both Metroidvanias, Axiom Verge is extremely Metroid while Hollow Knight seems to take a lot of inspiration from Dark Souls. I haven't played enough to say much more yet, but the art is beautiful.

The only thing that Hollow Knight shares with Dark Souls (that is something "like Dark Souls but") is the atmosphere and difficulty curve. The rest is standard Metroidvania with a very heavy focus on the Vania part. Dark Soul's design in that the world all lead into itself wasn't something it invented and like any modern Metroidvania there's plenty of backtracking once you find new upgrades. I guess there's also a "when you die, you can go back to where you died and get your stuff back" aspect that the creators absolutely admit comes from Dark Souls but Dark Souls isn't the first to have done that, or made it popular, and the wrinkle with having to fight your Shade adds a nice bit of depth to it.

[Rodin]

That's a very good summary, and a lot of my gameplay has been unlearning everything I knew from Dark Souls. Time a dodge perfectly to go through an attack? Hahaha no. The enemy will do a perfect homing pirouette to catch you. Holding a block? Only useful in dire emergencies when you don't know the timing for an attack, or if you're knocking projectiles out of the air.

One thing that I've started really liking is that relentless attacking isn't always the best way to go. Against one of the early bosses, if you try that she will block forever and then murder you when you miss a Deflect. You're far better off letting her attack first, dodging out of the way of it and then countering, or waiting until she leaps into the air to knock her down with a shuriken before starting your own combo. For another example, against spear elites I've generally found it best to wait until they try a Thrust attack and then use the special "stomp on their spear" counter before getting a few good hits in and raising the meter.

Also, you can parry and counter-kill dogs. That alone makes this my favorite game ever.

I do still find some of the controls really unintuitive though. Having two "evade" buttons really throws me, with both Jump and Dodge. And Jump attacks make no sense to me at all. It should be that I jump over the opponent's attack, which sets me up to perform a counter which I perform with my attack button. Instead, to perform the counter I have to hit Jump again. WHY? I'm not trying to jump again, I'm already in mid-air. Oh, and the parkour is some of the worst I've seen, though fortunately there isn't much of it and at least the main grapple mechanic works pretty well. Any time that I need precision jumping or ledge grabs though....*shudder*.

It's not the game I was expecting (a Soulsborne), and it's not the game I was expecting to be not expecting (a purely stealth-based ninja game). Instead, it's this weird mix of both, with the sword-fighting from Nioh thrown in as well.

And it's really starting to grow on me.

[Lord Raziere]

That's a very good summary, and a lot of my gameplay has been unlearning everything I knew from Dark Souls. Time a dodge perfectly to go through an attack? Hahaha no. The enemy will do a perfect homing pirouette to catch you. Holding a block? Only useful in dire emergencies when you don't know the timing for an attack, or if you're knocking projectiles out of the air.

Yeah, to explain it better: Dark Souls is European parry-riposte combat the game. its very much the knightly combat tradition of block attacks then killing when you see an opening.

Sekiro is Japanese Kenpo combat + shinobi stealth the game. you have a katana, you attack as furiously and fast as you can to interrupt whatever they're doing until they are dead.

its so different because its emulating very different combat traditions and targeting different fantasies. you can't play a ninja that same way you play a knight, its just not viable.

[Zombimode]

I've started Secret of the Silver Blades.

I was a bit hesitant to start the game since the reviews gave the impression that it is not on par with Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds, as well as being somewhat on the "grindy" side.
But so far it has been a blast
At least at the beginning the game has good pacing and provides a clear direction.

The quality and frequency of the artwork is also increased compared to the predecessors.


One thing that really irritates me is the fact that you have to select "move", both in combat and exploration, to move. In Pool and Curse moving was implicit by pressing the movement keys.
A change that I really don't understand

[Rodin]

Yeah, to explain it better: Dark Souls is European parry-riposte combat the game. its very much the knightly combat tradition of block attacks then killing when you see an opening.

Sekiro is Japanese Kenpo combat + shinobi stealth the game. you have a katana, you attack as furiously and fast as you can to interrupt whatever they're doing until they are dead.

its so different because its emulating very different combat traditions and targeting different fantasies. you can't play a ninja that same way you play a knight, its just not viable.

What really took a long time to get used to is the stealth. I'm used to stealth games that prize "ghosting", such that either the enemies never knew you were there and/or the soldiers disappear one by one with nobody the wiser. If you break stealth, that's it - you're in for a fight unless you want to run away and wait for an unreasonably long time before they settle down.

Sekiro doesn't allow that - the patrols travel in groups, and sentries sit where they can see each other. Instead, the style is to pick off one or two solo dudes, and then launch yourself at a group of enemies and stealth-kill the strongest one. You then sprint around trying to murder a couple of the weak guys, then book it entirely and wait only a very short time for enemies to settle down. Rinse and repeat, until only the enemy general is left and you can take him on in glorious mano-a-mano combat, after honorably stabbing him in the neck from stealth.

It's a very fun style of play, but once again my instincts led me down the wrong path initially.

[Dienekes]

Yeah, to explain it better: Dark Souls is European parry-riposte combat the game. its very much the knightly combat tradition of block attacks then killing when you see an opening.

Sekiro is Japanese Kenpo combat + shinobi stealth the game. you have a katana, you attack as furiously and fast as you can to interrupt whatever they're doing until they are dead.

its so different because its emulating very different combat traditions and targeting different fantasies. you can't play a ninja that same way you play a knight, its just not viable.

Eh, honestly I think it’s just more fair to say Sekiro tries to get the feel of swordsmanship right, and Dark Souls doesn’t. I’ve personally never tried to dodge through an attack, and both the German and Italian Traditions agree that it’s safer to be the aggressor.

Honestly Japanese and European swordsmanship aren’t really that different from each other. Which makes sense if you think about it. You’re just using a long sharp lever to both defend yourself and cut apart your enemy.

[Iruka]

Just started playing Apotheon, the game that I dreamt about when I was a kid and read about Greek heroes and gods and how they all hit each other with spears and clubs and rocks and lightning.
Just like in my dreams. I... I'm so happy.

Apotheon is a true gem and deserves more attention.

[PokemonQ]

Pokemon gogo

[Lord Raziere]

Eh, honestly I think it’s just more fair to say Sekiro tries to get the feel of swordsmanship right, and Dark Souls doesn’t. I’ve personally never tried to dodge through an attack, and both the German and Italian Traditions agree that it’s safer to be the aggressor.

Honestly Japanese and European swordsmanship aren’t really that different from each other. Which makes sense if you think about it. You’re just using a long sharp lever to both defend yourself and cut apart your enemy.

Well to be fair, Sekiro has a lot more human-scaled opponents than Dark Souls. In Dark Souls your often fighting bosses who are inexplicably giant or cast a lot of magic at you, like demons, dragons, and so on. in that paradigm the optimal thing to do is exploit greater maneuverability by dodging their big yet slower attacks.

in Sekiro on the other hand, most of your opponents are the same size or nearly the same size as you and thus are almost as or just as fast as you. the biggest you get is those ogre guys and those can be deathblow from behind easier than most because they're even stupider than normal soldiers and lose track of you easily. its a lot better to emulate swordsmanship when your working with the scales that swordsmen operates on.

and also most of the more human-scaled dark souls bosses and minions I don't dodge roll but block or parry because often dodge-rolling isn't needed or doesn't accomplish what is needed to defeat them. the best way to defeat Abyss Watchers? parry king the hell out of them because once you recognize their patterns they telegraph what they do from miles away. its more an emphasis on the more human-scale aspects of dark souls combat than the "normal guy vs. a titan" aspect that many boss fights were.

[Rodin]

Well to be fair, Sekiro has a lot more human-scaled opponents than Dark Souls. In Dark Souls your often fighting bosses who are inexplicably giant or cast a lot of magic at you, like demons, dragons, and so on. in that paradigm the optimal thing to do is exploit greater maneuverability by dodging their big yet slower attacks.

in Sekiro on the other hand, most of your opponents are the same size or nearly the same size as you and thus are almost as or just as fast as you. the biggest you get is those ogre guys and those can be deathblow from behind easier than most because they're even stupider than normal soldiers and lose track of you easily. its a lot better to emulate swordsmanship when your working with the scales that swordsmen operates on.

and also most of the more human-scaled dark souls bosses and minions I don't dodge roll but block or parry because often dodge-rolling isn't needed or doesn't accomplish what is needed to defeat them. the best way to defeat Abyss Watchers? parry king the hell out of them because once you recognize their patterns they telegraph what they do from miles away. its more an emphasis on the more human-scale aspects of dark souls combat than the "normal guy vs. a titan" aspect that many boss fights were.

To be fair, you do get a good few that are bigger than the ogre dudes, at least among bosses. Including one dude that look like he got lost looking for Bloodborne, asked for directions from Patches and is now wondering how the hell he wound up in Feudal Japan. And with the few deaths I have against that guy, it seems like parrying him is a very, very bad idea.

After bouncing off the final boss in a big way, I decided to restart and go through the game again on a fresh save and practice my skills on the earlier enemies. Turns out my skill level has gone way up, which is a gratifying feeling I haven't really had since Bloodborne. I'd even say it's more akin to my first time replaying Dark Souls 1 in terms of how different the difficulty level is. (mini)-Bosses that I spent dozens of lives on are dropping without landing a blow in return.

One place where I did have more trouble than on my first run, however.

Spoiler

Show

The Flaming Bull. This guy is absolutely a Bloodborne boss (not the guy I was referring to earlier though), in that parrying him doesn't really gain you all that much and his flaming horns will deal damage through your block. The first time I fought him I still had Soulsborne instincts, and I dodged my way to victory. Trying to fight properly using parrying and Firecrackers got me killed several times before I managed to get back into the mindset of dodging his attacks.

[warty goblin]

Not really playing anything much at the moment. I just ordered a new gaming rig, and it seems pointless to put up with horrid loading screens and so forth on the eight year old fossil I have right now, when by next weekend I can crank up the Division 2 in glorious high settings. Frankly I'll be happy with a setting where cars don't sometimes have triangular tires.

And by 'crank up the Division 2' I mean 'spend all day waiting for it to download.' Tragically faster PCs do not magically come with faster internet.

[NRSASD]

Playing Darkwood! Not sure I can manage it to be honest. I'm not the biggest fan of horror, and was lured in with the promises of "a horror game without jumpscares" and "we hate horror movies and being scared". Those may be true, but WOW the tension in that game is unreal. I survived the first night, and it was ridiculous. Nothing happened, and I was waiting with bated breath the entire time. In an isometric game!

Unbelievably creepy, and the worst thing is, I'm really intrigued! I HAVE TO PLAY MORE

[Zevox]

So, I got to a point I was pretty darn happy with in Smash Ultimate's online (21 characters in Elite Smash), and Dragon Ball FighterZ just had a big balance patch drop that basically buffed everyone, so I decided to put Smash on hold until Joker comes out and spend my fighting game time with DBFZ again.

Oh boy, getting back into that game after four months of Smash is rough. Adjusting to the speed, mobility options, and generally different feel of everything going from Smash into a more traditional-style fighting game is not easy, and of course most of the people still playing a fighting game that's over a year old are at least pretty decent. I have gotten my ass handed to me so many times the past few days, and am only now starting to feel like I'm adjusting a bit.

Picked up Videl though, and I'm finding her pretty fun. Not as similar to Android 18 as I expected though - even though she calls Gohan/Great Saiyaman like 18 calls 17, she uses her summons more as a replacement for projectiles (since Videl never learned to throw energy around like everyone else in DBZ), where 18 uses them as pressure tools. Still, very fun rushdown character with a lot of options and unique combos - and a good assist that goes well with my favorite character, Vegito, too, so that's a great plus.

On the single-player side, still doing Devil May Cry 5, slowly making my way through Dante Must Die difficulty. It's appropriately a lot harder than even the next-highest difficulty, with much more aggressive enemies, and I am indeed dying a lot more than on my other runs. But that just makes it all the sweeter when I do finish a mission and see an A or S rank flash across the screen (B at worst - I tend to restart missions if I'm doing poorly enough that I'll get below that). I'm both excited and terrified to see what the final boss will be like on this difficulty.

[Inarius]

Well I moved on from Dragon Age to Outward. It's pretty enjoyable for me but I can see how it would be really offputting to a fair amount of people. Its got some real jankyness in its combat and its death penalty ranges from an inconvenience to soul crushing. Honestly I think I prefer the death penalty in the souls games or even everquest because at least they're consistent so I know what the cost of failure is going to be.

Other than that though I'm usually having fun, though balance is also all over the place. Melee is just awful early on since all of the useful abilities are really expensive to train. Meanwhile casters get a ton of pretty good options at a low training price so they wind up excelling early on. I of course decided I would start as melee then shift towards a spellblade character later on... it was probably the opposite of what I should of done to make my life easier heh.

[Lord Raziere]

Sekiro:
I....finally....beaten Lord Genichiro second battle. ahahahahahaha. and I thought that lady butterfly and blazing bull were bad. Genichiro was something completely else. the constant mix up game he was playing with his sword and his bow, the second phase/third bar with lightning attacks,it all just made him something truly special to beat. the last few moments of that final second phase was me in some trance in a moment of pure focus doing just enough to kill him by blinding him with a final firecracker flash and some perfect parries. I felt like I was ultra-instincting those final moments.

in the end, I had to go through most of my accumulated pellets, a couple hundred spirit emblems and tons of ungo sugars on my failed runs, and I still ended up drinking up all my gourds and only having like, 20-30% of health or less left by the time I finally beat him, and I couldn't use pellets on my final runs because I used up so many I decided to save them instead of wasting them on dying to Genichiro again. (Ironic since between my many failed runs and my final ones, I went to ginrd on gun fort specifically to level up the skill that makes medicine more effective)

and this is only apparently, the mid boss. yet if there was music I'd put to the bosses in this game, it'd be megalovania full stop.

I'm going to get the mortal blade another time. I'm tired, and my third rez and increased attack power is reward enough for now...

[oxybe]

Currently replaying the sims 3 as a jobless manchild who never leaves his 400square foot "house" and publishes a line of bad novels titled "In another world with my magic toaster", while also doing the artwork (as cruddy as his art-ing skill is). he has 20 volumes published as of now. Why they manage to be best sellers is beyond anyone's imagination.

He's finally achieved on of his life goals: to have a hired maid tend to his cleaning needs which means he can be even lazier then normal and live off his preferred diet of Kraft Dinner, Pancakes and PB&J sammiches, thanks to the weekly royalties

I initially wanted to have him live entirely off dependents, basically having 2-3 other characters I never controlled and just had this one guy play around, but then I realized I can't afford to build a larger space so I had to put some elbow grease and effort.

I do realize I could have simply started with having a couple of others living with him, but I wanted to play him as a parasite, weaving his way into the lives of others and then sucking them dry, rather then just starting with all the pieces in play. though at this point with my current cash flow it won't be long until I can basically stop working and technically live like a jerk forever, assuming I can get that Vampire I met online to hang out at my place and turn me immortal.

[GloatingSwine]

Currently replaying the sims 3 as a jobless manchild who never leaves his 400square foot "house" and publishes a line of bad novels titled "In another world with my magic toaster", while also doing the artwork (as cruddy as his art-ing skill is). he has 20 volumes published as of now. Why they manage to be best sellers is beyond anyone's imagination..

Sounds like a 100% realistic depiction of the average Isekai light novel author to me.

[oxybe]

Sounds like a 100% realistic depiction of the average Isekai light novel author to me.

I'm half tempted to find a way to setup an animation studio on my surprisingly large plot of land and just jail about a half-dozen schmucks in there full time and label it "Toei".

Needs me at least 1 season of MagiToast.

[Anonymouswizard]

Okay, laughing at Iseki-Sim. Might have to reinstall my Sims 3 (I think I need a bigger hard drive).

Well apparently Chrono Trigger has been released on phones and only costs £10. So time to see how the Adventures of our hero, Boy, turn out, along with Girl, Royal, Toad, and whatever I device to call the others.

[Wookieetank]

Okay, laughing at Iseki-Sim. Might have to reinstall my Sims 3 (I think I need a bigger hard drive).

Well apparently Chrono Trigger has been released on phones and only costs £10. So time to see how the Adventures of our hero, Boy, turn out, along with Girl, Royal, Toad, and whatever I device to call the others.

Robot, Chief, and Mage come to mind, particularly if they still have the very limited name length.

[Aspheric]

I started another playthrough of Stardew Valley... Please send help.

[LibraryOgre]

Nominally playing Baldur's Gate... I can't really get into it, so I'll usually log in, go to a screen, use the console to clear Fog of War, then walk to the location of important things. I'm not sure if I'm having trouble getting in because I've played it so much, or because I beat BG2 (beating a series usually reduces my enthusiasm for playing it again), or because I'm not enthused by my character (a gnome cleric/thief), but it's just... meh.

[Velaryon]

I dusted off Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes again, only this time I'm playing it on Steam instead of Xbox 360. I always loved the puzzle aspect of the battles, although the story is rather simplistic.

It's not as fun as playing 2v2 with my friend back in the day, which lets you pull off some pretty crazy combos if you coordinate well, but it scratches the itch at least.

[Triaxx]

Mark, if you're not on the Enhanced Edition, try BG-Trilogy, and play as one of the Kits. They make the game more interesting early on by far.

[LibraryOgre]

Mark, if you're not on the Enhanced Edition, try BG-Trilogy, and play as one of the Kits. They make the game more interesting early on by far.

I am on Enhanced Edition. I beat it as a Blade, but I'm not finding the cleric/thief as compelling.

[Inarius]

I am on Enhanced Edition. I beat it as a Blade, but I'm not finding the cleric/thief as compelling.

I really do find that getting the right class helps a lot for getting into the mindset to play to old IE games and even the more modern homage games like POE and Pathfinder. Could always try using EE Keeper to adjust your class to see if its fun if restarting isn't something you want to do.

As for what I'm playing I've kind of run the course on Outward, its been a pretty fun run and I managed to get the hang of how everything works in the game to the point where I broke the casting system skyrim style (no mana costs for all of my spells). As for what I'm going to move on to it'll either be Dragon Age Inquisition to finish up my current semi annual playthrough of the series or to load up Borderlands 2 since the reveal of 3 has kind of got me hankering for a looter shooter.

[tonberrian]

Dug out my gamecube, now I'm 20 hours deep into Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door. Trying to bide my time until my new laptop arrives on Monday.

[Lord Raziere]

Dug out my gamecube, now I'm 20 hours deep into Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door. Trying to bide my time until my new laptop arrives on Monday.

man I hope I get to play an rpg like that again. those were great. I don't even have my gamecube anymore.

still playing Sekiro, run up against the guardian ape. will have to push through another boss wall eventually. bought Witcher 3 for like ten dollars on a steam sale, so I can finally play that fully after I finish....Sekiro and Dark Souls Remastered, the latter of which is on pause until I finish Sekiro. sigh. maybe I should vary it up a little more....

[Silverraptor]

Discovered Warthunder. Haven't been able to stop since.