Bloodborne (Dark Souls 2 successor (Dark Souls successor (Demon's Souls successor)))

[Bjorn]

Yeah, it's definitely odd how the Souls games teach you that poison and bleed are so powerful, but if you try to use that power for yourself, you find out it doesn't work as well. It's one of the few instances where a gameplay system is weighed against the player through flat asymmetry.

 

As tools, each of the status affects is potentially super valuable in the Souls games in players hands.  In DS1, bleed was especially valuable for deep NG+ runs or low level runs, as it was always a fixed percentage of damage.  So even if your weapon couldn't do a ton of damage, you could routinely take off big chunks of damage from many enemies, including about half the bosses (though bosses took a lower percentage hit than mobs).  In DS2, bleed was nerfed to flat health damage, limiting its use in PvE but still leaving some utility in PvP with its Stamina damage.  It was an attempt to re-imagine Bleed that wasn't a bad idea inherently, but it needed some adjustment/balance that it never got.   Poison has always been an incredibly useful tool.  It lets you stack constant damage on a surprising array of enemies, and proper builds can apply it within as few as 2-4 hits.  In DS2, something like two-thirds of the vanilla game bosses can be poisoned, and most anything that can be poisoned can be made toxic as well.   In all 4 games, poison has been one of the best ways to deal with  troublesome NPC invaders/hunters, particularly since each game usually gives a poisoning tool like knives or arrows so that any class can benefit from it.

 

With Bloodborne, poison knives have their place, though I suspect they are intended to be used in NG+ and Chalice Dungeons since you can't get a steady supply of them until very late game.  Rapid Poison is one that people haven't figured out yet.  It's the fixed percentage bleed effect from DS1 again, but so far proccing it is taking too long.  It may ultimately be useful with fast weapons on deep NG+ runs though.  Since it has often taken several months for the community to figure out the best way to abuse status effects, I'm not going to write off Rapid Poison yet.

 

Huh, I wonder if either Poison effect applies to gun shots from the Reiterpallasch or Rifle Spear, since they are the only guns you can put regular gems on.  That could be interesting.  With the extra bullet runes plus bullet recharge through Viscerals, you might actually be able to do a big chunk of the game with just ranged weapons. 

[Korax]

When I fought the two NPC hunters near the cathedral during my second game, I had a bit of trouble with parry timing on the second one (the one with a Tonitrus, I think). I hit him with 2 poisoned throwing knives and just strafed around for a minute as he slowly died in front of me.

[Mangela Lansbury]

I summoned someone to help me with Ebrietas. They came into the garden place from outside, rode the elevator down with me, then sent it up. Then they ran in circles for a minute, did a joy emote, and leapt into the gaping hole where the elevator wasn't.

Ebrietas is not going well for me.

[Twig]

Dang. I helped like ten people with that. Well tried. I died a bunch or they died when they didn't know how the fight worked (still amazes me how many people summon help without even trying once on their own).

[Bjorn]

Source

 

[Twig]

 

Source

 

 

That last sentence, holy shit.

 

Who is that, though? (EDIT: Oh it's Miyazaki I guess I should click links.) I saw a similar photo of a Miyazaki interview where he said Rom was his favorite!

[Bjorn]

I'm trusting that it was Miyazaki, I just saw a link to that tweet. 

 

Maybe they're all his favorites!  Like you never had a favorite child, you love them all equally.

[JonCole]

I haven't played in a couple weeks and decided to hop back in on a whim, took out Darkbeast Paarl on my first attempt today (it was like the fourth attempt overall). I'm back!

[natellite]

My favorite thing about bloodborne is how i can ram my head up against a boss for like 45 minutes, get frustrated, quit, then come back the next morning and kill it on my first attempt.

[softmachine]

[Twig]

I remember a lot of people talking about Souls burnout when Dark Souls 2 came out.

 

So, no, I don't think Bloodborne is the beginning of the end.

 

What I'd like to see is more things like Lords of the Fallen. Not, like, sub-par Souls clones. But different takes on the... "Souls" "genre".

[softmachine]

[Griddlelol]

The trophy info suggests around 1/4 people finish the game. That's not a small amount in my opinion. Compare that to a more traditional AAA like Shadow of Mordor which has completion of around 1/3.

That's not much difference really, especially as Mordor has had much longer to allow people to finish.

[richardco]

Source

 

CDx9M-oW0AIESYq.jpg

 

This is a goof.  I have the guide and it's not in there.

The closest question asks about Miyazaki's favorite boss.  He's reticent to answer but eventually decides on Rom.

[softmachine]

  

[Griddlelol]

That's a fair point, but I don't really have any other comparable game in my trophy list. What's a story driven AAA game of similar length to Bloodborne? 

 

Is completion a valuable metric to determine whether someone will buy another game in a series? 

 

Looking at a list of games on PS4, it looks like practically all AAA games follow an open world format now. The only one that stood out as not being open world is The Order, but that's only about 6 hours of game time, which is definitely not comparable to BB.

[N1njaSquirrel]

That's a fair point, but I don't really have any other comparable game in my trophy list. What's a story driven AAA game of similar length to Bloodborne? 

 

Maybe GTA V or The Last of Us: Remastered? 

[Bjorn]

This is a goof.  I have the guide and it's not in there.

The closest question asks about Miyazaki's favorite boss.  He's reticent to answer but eventually decides on Rom.

 

I had half suspected as much, given the ridiculousness of that last sentence, but a man can always hope.

[Dewar]

Wasn't there a Steam statistic somewhere that only 10% of people who get the first achievement in a game get the achievement for finishing? I don't think a 25% completion rate is bad at all.

I haven't played Bloodborne (no PS4) but from the sounds of it they took a lot of what I like about Dark Souls out. Quickening the pace and lowering the equipment variety are the opposite of what I'd like to have, personally. Maybe if I play it, it'll click for me though.

[Twig]

I disagree with basically all complaints re: weapon variety. I think people are crazy. (compared to Dark Souls)

 

As for quickening the pace, I dunno. I still feel like I mostly play the game at the same pace. I just can't use a shield anymore so I had to learn to parry. I still suck at it, but I'm definitely better than I ever was in Dark Souls.

[JonCole]

I didn't play enough DS to give an informed critique re: weapon variety, but I will say that the transformations feel like a massive evolution in the series. I basically never wanted to uses two-handed weapons in DS and this game finally let me mess around with the idea. I also feel like the limited weapon variety actually encouraged me to try more of the weapons just due to the fact that it wasn't as daunting to do so.

 

I feel like the pace of Bloodborne encourages parrying and backstabbing in a meaningful way. It was too easy in DS to just hide behind a 100% phys resist shield and get through much (though obviously not all) of the game on pure attrition. I think the lack of a shield and the necessity to learn how to move better means that the difficulty curve is much easier to manage in Bloodborne just by the function of you being forced to learn the battle system of the game. That said, this seems to favor new players more than veterans; I'm sure if you were comfortable with DS you'd be a lot more comfortable trying new, better things in subsequent games.

[Griddlelol]

Bloodborne is distilled Souls. It's got everything that makes the souls games great with all the fat trimmed away. Some people liked the fat (casting spells, being passive while holding up a shield and having 20 swords that are basically the same with another 20 upgrade paths), but I think Bloodborne is close to the best Souls game made yet.

You have to play physical. Good, the enemies in Souls are designed with that in mind mostly.

You have to learn to dodge and read enemies. No more using a shield to learn a boss before actually fighting it, which is a tactic I relied on heavily. It makes the boss fights so much more interesting.

I think if I had played Bloodbore first, it would be my favourite, however Dark Souls eclipses it, but only in a few ways.

TLoU has a 40% completion rate on easy. That drops off quickly at the higher difficulties. I'd say if you give Bloodborne enough time, to be around 30-40%.

I also noticed something today. The picture of the singing horribles meant to show the similarities to the doll, actually show more similarities to the Knight's Garb. I'd be more inclined to believe they were corrupted Knights from Cainhurst than other dolls.

[Bjorn]

Weapon variety is mainly a concern for me because of repeat playthroughs and PvP.  If you've typically just played through a Souls game once or twice, the weapon variety is actually great.  But there's not enough there for going back again and again to mess with different builds (between DS1 and 2 I'm in the dozens of playthroughs).   It also means that you basically only see a handful of builds in PvP, which gets old.  There's also the clothing variety, which allows for very little Fashion Souls. 

 

But mechanically its superb, and it might be the best world/lore they've built to date.  Exploring continues at the same pace it always did, and combat is faster, but it feels like a natural extension of their previous systems.

 

 

 

Oh, I did load up a bunch of rapid poison gems onto a Rifle Spear last night, and was never able to get it to proc on a few enemies I tried it on.  So I don't think the poison applies to bullets on those.

[Bjorn]

having 20 swords that are basically the same with another 20 upgrade paths

 

But they all look different!  Fashion matters, dammit. 

 

I've just accepted that DS2 is my version of playing dress up with dolls.  I'm okay with that.

[Dewar]

DS2 has a surprising number of weapons that are very similar, but have a different move set, reach, scaling, etc. I remember going through Dark Souls 1 with my agility mage, trying out every rapier I could find, and experimenting with int scaling on each one to choose the one I wanted. I enjoyed that a lot, though I can understand why others might get annoyed with that process. I'm a loot sort of person. I get bored with a game once I get my optimal build because there's nothing out there left to find to improve it.

As for pacing, I no-shielded DS2 so it's not that I was hiding behind blocking all the time. I guess if this and the Dota thread show anything, it's that I prefer my games slow and methodical, where I can plan ahead and take my time.