Sully907

Dark Souls(Demon's Souls successor)

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As someone who bought a PS4 just for Bloodborne, it's not really worth it.

Agreed to some extent but for me that's honestly more of an indictment of the PS4 and its horrific Plus BS.

 

Still, it's the Soulslike that I've wanted to go back to the least so far. I bought the DLC and lost interest while trying to find how to actually access it.

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As someone who also bought a PS4 for Bloodborne (but also aware that other games down the line were going to be good), it's the better game out of Dark Souls and Bloodborne! By a billions!

Not going to argue what the better game is, there are unquestionably some things Bloodborne improves on, but for me Dark Souls taken as a whole has an aesthetic value that I can't compare to other games. It won't matter if Souls game x or y has more fun bosses, no bad areas like Lost Izalith or more fluid combat, because even though I love playing these games just for their mechanics there's something to the first one that makes me like it on another level. It may just be that I played it first, I'll probably never know, but just as an artistic work it feels by far the most accomplished to me.

From all the subtle ways the theme and mechanics intersect, to the different emotional notes it strikes. I love the other games too, but it's BioShock 2 syndrome and I don't even like BioShock.

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Yeah I'm clownin', obviously everone has their own opinions about shit.

 

I played Dark Souls first; I was never all that impressed by the art/atmosphere like everyone else was. I found it more prohibitive and annoying than I did engaging.

 

Bloodborne on the other hand did all of that so so so perfectly for me, on top of having more engaging gameplay in general!

 

There are things I like better about Souls, but the things I like better about Bloodborne outweigh if not in quantity, at least in quality.

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I asked the ghost of Orson Welles what his opinion is, and this is what happened:

 

fatknight.gif

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Thanks again for all your help, everyone! I beat Quelaag last night in a super close battle, where I ran out of flasks, burned a hard Humanity to heal during the fight, and just scraped it out. Rang the bell and proceeded to go up the elevator back to the Valley of Drakes, got killed by a big club guy, lost the humanity by falling off the elevator on the next attempt, died on the elevator again, ran past all the club guys & out of the cave & straight off the cliff into the bottom of the valley, but eventually did make it back to Firelink. Without any spoilers, more overt narrative elements are coming into play and I'm much less concerned about missing what's happening & really excited to keep going from here (and to never put any points in Resistance again :tup: )

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I burned a lot of souls into resistance just to get through the swamp, since I went there too early (I took the back door in). And now I have to throw some souls at faith just to use my new bow. I'm still probably doing a better job than last time though.

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I'm going to do the SL1 run, for the mad street cred it'll surely earn me. I don't expect it to be that much fun though...

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I always thought Queelag was the hardest fight in DS1 by quite a long shot. Her movement and attacks just never clicked with me.

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Weird I had no trouble with her at all. Her attacks are so simple and quite short range that you can easily avoid them and bow her. But I guess I got a lot of practice cheesing people with arrows.

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I had a really easy time with her like the first four or five times I fought her and then just on my last run she ended up giving me a lot of trouble. I think how tricky she is might depend a lot on how you approach the fight -- or, possibly, I just didn't pump my damage stat enough :P

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I bought the PC version of Dark Souls after playing my old 360 copy at my parents' house over the weekend. Am I missing something, or is the multiplayer still broken? I don't even see the soapstone notes.

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I've been playing and it doesn't seem to be reliably online. I tried to summon help in Anor Londo for ages, only to realise that there was no orange messages anywhere. But it definitely works at times.

 

Also about co-op, do I have to be at an appropriate level to be summoned to another person's game? I haven't really co-oped into people's games but I'd like to try it out. I'm just not sure if it's actually... possible or not.

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It should be working, it's been working for me.

Although I haven't played in a couple days.

 

(I'm at the Gaping Dragon. He doesn't seem too hard, but he's got like a billion HP and I inevitably make a fatal mistake before I get him all the way down. Might be time to finally try summoning help)

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It should be working, it's been working for me.

Although I haven't played in a couple days.

 

(I'm at the Gaping Dragon. He doesn't seem too hard, but he's got like a billion HP and I inevitably make a fatal mistake before I get him all the way down. Might be time to finally try summoning help)

 

Do you know about cutting bosses tails off in DS1?  Most bosses with a tail can have it cut off, dropping a unique weapon.  The Gaping Dragon happens to drop my favorite weapon in all the Souls games (it's a slow, giant axe that takes a metric fuckton of strength to wield, so not to everyone's taste). 

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The Gaping Dragon is one of my favorite fights in the game. Feels very much like a 'boss' battle should, epic without being impossible. The scale is huge.

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There's a lot you can do to make that fight easier, for example gold pine resin that Domhnall of Zena sells and the slimes drop green titanite shard that can get a fire or divine weapon to +5.

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Yeah, I chopped off one of the gargoyle's tails so I know about the tail thing.

 

Golfing Dragon definitely seems manageable, I think I'm just impatient. Similarly, a lot of difficult optional bosses have seemed "doable" but I just get so discouraged by how slowly their health bars go down, so I never really test that theory.

 

I have one more gold pine resin (from a chest or something) but I'm afraid of using it before I'm confident I can win with it; the first two resins got wasted on failed boss runs.

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Hm, if Gaping is taking that much punishment you might have a weapon issue. He certainly takes more damage than capra, but isn't excessively tough as bosses go.

Domnhall also sells the crystal greatsword, which is a great stopgap weapon to use until you can get a weapon you like to +10.

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I bought the PC version of Dark Souls after playing my old 360 copy at my parents' house over the weekend. Am I missing something, or is the multiplayer still broken? I don't even see the soapstone notes.

 

I co-oped just about 6 hours ago, so it's definitely working. I co-oped last night too. I summoned two dudes that died to the Anor Londo boss, and it was 2AM so I went to sleep disgruntled, but the third guy this morning pulled through for me!

 

The Anor Londo boss I think was the first time I felt really exasperated about this game. There's a few reasons for this, including the fact that getting into the final building was a nightmare (bloody dragonslayer archers), the bonfire locations were a bit awkward and forced you to wait for stage transformation animations, and it was the first time I've ever been invaded due to attempting to summon for help. Once I did it, I didn't feel the elation I did when I beat other bosses, I was just drained, and I felt like my summon buddy did most of the work for me. 

 

Gaping dragon actually felt like one of the easier bosses for me, since it didn't seem to have many attack patterns. I just had to be careful for its kind of scampering attack which I didn't initially realise was even an attack. To date, gaping dragon is the only boss in the game I have ever beaten in one try. Different players would react to different bosses differently of course! So I guess fighting the gaping dragon kinda just fell neatly into the style of fighting I'm somewhat good at. 

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Part of what makes Dark Souls so remarkable to me is that I feel very bad at it; bad at reading attack tells, bad at timing rolls... in games in general and not just in Dark Souls. And yet I'm not discouraged from playing it, and I'm still having a lot of fun.

 

This is also a source of apprehension, though, since I know things only get harder.

 

Still haven't beat the Gaping Dragon because I decided to take a detour to beat the Moonlight Butterfly, which was very easy and a great confidence booster. That guy was giving me troubler earlier when I didn't know where I was going and fought him before exploring the Parish. This also gave me a chance to upgrade my weapon to +7, and to pick up a divine weapon for giggles (IDK why I'd want one but I have a suspicion I'll be glad I did that).

 

Anyway, I am moving veeeeery slowly though this game. I wish I could get a real estimate of how long it's taking; accidentally left it running overnight so my Steam hours played is woefully inaccurate.

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Dium, it's wonderful to take your time and really let the world seep its way into your bones. That's how I've always approached the Souls games, and I love it. The sense of place only becomes stronger.

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Yup, cherish that sense of apprehension. Actually, trying to play again without leveling has made me a lot more cautious (as you'd expect), and I'm having a blast so far. I do feel that soon I'll have to grind for shards etc. and upgrade my weapons and shield, or I'll be way underpowered, which isn't a great way to be when one hit can kill you. 

 

Not looking forward to O&S; will defo be taking Solaire along for that one.

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Anyway, I am moving veeeeery slowly though this game. I wish I could get a real estimate of how long it's taking; accidentally left it running overnight so my Steam hours played is woefully inaccurate.

 

There should be a played time counter when you go to load your save! But if you left the game running with the save loaded that will be inaccurate too :\

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I was really confused by everyone talking about the gaping dragon that I hadn't met yet until I realised it's in the Depths, which I just sequence broke and skipped. Even now I don't wanna go back down in case I end up being cursed.

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I do feel that soon I'll have to grind for shards etc. and upgrade my weapons and shield, or I'll be way underpowered, which isn't a great way to be when one hit can kill you. 

I discovered on my last playthrough that I really didn't need to grind for shards at all to get my weapon to +15, and I didn't bother upgrading anything else -- The crestfallen knight and giant blacksmith both sell large titanite, and if you go down to New Londo there's nearly enough chunks in chests and stuff and even without grinding the darkwraiths will probably drop the last couple you need. The real pain in the ass is getting a slab, which requires going back to the undead asylum or something. Well, I wasn't doing a SL1 run though, so I had enough endurance that I could stack on Havel's, which is un-upgradeable anyway, and still have a mid-roll. I should try doing a SL1 run: If I still can't get DS3 working in a week or two maybe I'll stream it.

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