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

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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.

 

I agree, I find a real satisfying crunchiness to experimenting with a variety of weapons to find the one that's a perfect fit for the playstyle I want.   And the DS2 DLC really upped the amount of things you can consider with a build, as more clothing now gives minor bonuses than ever, and some new rings can have some profound effects on what weapons are "viable" or not.  I'm straight up addicted to Flynn's Ring, which adds up to +50 physical damage based on your equip load, which results in favoring builds that wear little to no real armor.  That extra damage takes some average to good weapons and makes them great. 

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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.

That's exactly how I played Bloodborne, though. I'm honestly not too sure what has given you the impression that that playstyle is invalid. I've beaten the game by doing that.

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That's exactly how I played Bloodborne, though. I'm honestly not too sure what has given you the impression that that playstyle is invalid. I've beaten the game by doing that.

Everything I have seen shows enemies that move much faster, tighter timing requirements on parrying and dodging, groups of enemies that prioritize aggressiveness to quickly trim down the pack instead of cautiousness, that sort of stuff. Maybe it would feel different if I was playing it, but I'm not the only person I've heard talking about the pace increase.

Edit: All that being said, I would play it if I could and I'm bummed out it's Playstation exclusive.

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There are a lot of situations where you get an overhead or long view of an arena, a fairly good idea of the topography of the enemies, and you can pull using pebbles/throwing knives or jump off of ledges to take an area at your own pace/order. I also feel like the pipe is wide enough that you can go through certain areas via different paths or in different directions, some of which really favor a slow methodical pace and others that tap into the risk/reward of a faster playstyle.

 

That said, there do seem to be more enemies/groups that require decisive moves or at least you're well rewarded for being aggressive. However, I don't really think that's so different from Dark Souls but again my experience is limited.

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I dunno when I watch people play Dark Souls they all play a million miles per hour faster than I play Dark Souls, and the same is true for Bloodborne.

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Bloodborne is still incredibly slow and methodical. It's just slightly faster paced than Dark Souls. the only reason people are saying it's so much faster is because there's no wondering around with your shield held up.

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

This is literally what my daughter calls the game. Well, Dark Souls 1. I have a char parked at Firelink with all armour sets, and she loves picking different outfits, and occasionally running off the cliff.

"Daddy can I play the dress-up game?"

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This is literally what my daughter calls the game. Well, Dark Souls 1. I have a char parked at Firelink with all armour sets, and she loves picking different outfits, and occasionally running off the cliff.

"Daddy can I play the dress-up game?"

 

That's awesome!  :tup: :tup: :tup: :tup:

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Bloodborne is still incredibly slow and methodical. It's just slightly faster paced than Dark Souls. the only reason people are saying it's so much faster is because there's no wondering around with your shield held up.

See, I don't think it is slow and methodical and that's something I miss. Maybe it's slow if you compare it to a Platinum game (I wouldn't know), but not compared to Souls games. There are so many changes to make you not play slow and methodical, the fact that a lot of enemies have little to no poise, dodges with a ton of iframes that consume almost no stamina, very short heal animation that doesn't stop your movement, regain system, dodging out of stuns, large parry window etc. Stamina management barely matters, positioning matters way less (there have been times where I've been surrounded and chained 8+ dodges to avoid getting hit, and not because I'm amazing), timing your heals is rarely a thing. I think when you add it all up the combat is quite different. I'm not arguing that it's worse, but it is different.

As for the weapon variety, I think that even when you subtract the weapons that were very similar in Dark Souls (Scimitar vs Falchion) you are left with more variety. In addition to the regular weapons you have all the boss souls weapons, the tail weapons and other unique weapons like the Black Kngith stuff, covenant weapons (Gravelord Sword) etc. Almost every enemy in the game can drop their weapon, there's even that silly Plow thing the gardeners use. For me, the 'bad' weapons add value too. I guess it's good that all the weapons in Bloodborne have amazing movesets, but trying to do a playthrough with say Ornstein's Dragonslayer Spear is a lot of fun too.

Finally, the item variety matters a lot for the exploration. The fact that there basically are no items to collect in BB makes exploring less fun and that matters on subsequent playthrough too. When I start a new Dark Souls playthrough I think about it in terms of the items I want to get and in what order. In BB the only items you want to get are upgrade mats. I guess there's like one or two armor sets and maybe the Rifle Spear or Tonitrus. There's also nothing with high stat requirements, which feeds into the problem of it not feeling like it matters what you level up. I'm not sure I think the leveling system even has a place tbh. While I'm complaining I might as well add that the Runes are pretty unimaginative compared to the Rings in previous games.

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The leveling system has a place in me doing enough damage for fights to not last forever and having enough HP or damage resistance to not die all the time. I guess if you're a pro that stuff doesn't matter, but it matters to me.

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eot you sound like someone who's good at the game.

 

I'm not, so I still play it at the same pace I played Dark Souls! You claim larger parry windows. I still miss parries far far far far far more than I hit them. You say you can dodge randomly 8+ times while cornered. I die nearly every time I'm cornered. You say stamina barely matters. Running out of stamina is the number one reason I take damage, and I take a lot of damage. I mean I could go on, but I think I've made my point. You clearly played the game significantly differently from how I played the game.

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This is literally what my daughter calls the game. Well, Dark Souls 1. I have a char parked at Firelink with all armour sets, and she loves picking different outfits, and occasionally running off the cliff.

"Daddy can I play the dress-up game?"

 

what the heck this is the cutest thing ever

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Funny you should mention a comparison to platinum games, as that was exactly what I was thinking when I posted that. The combat in Bloodbone is snail-like compared to Bayonetta, which is the last action game I played before BB. I hit and run against a lot of enemies, so while the overall pace of each combat interaction is fast, I'm then out, waiting, watching before I go back in to do more damage.

The fact that every enemy is potentially deadly makes you play methodically. Sure, if I need to farm vials I'll sprint like crazy but that's because I know the enemies in C Yharnham very well by now.

Playing bayonetta, I'm constantly hitting buttons, dodging, parrying, attacking, counter attacking but in Bloodborne there are many periods of inactivity. Less than Dark souls, but enough to make me feel like I'm taking my time and learning each and every enemy.

I totally agree on stamina management. You can basically ignore the stamina bar, because even if you pump out enough swings to empty it, there's always enough left to dodge immediately (and those iframes on the dodge are insanely lenient. The same with parries, they're extremely generous, but this game is designed to be "accessible souls." It suffers in some respects for that, but it also gains in some ways. I frankly love the pace increase, something I thought I'd hate, but it makes the game so much more enjoyable to me, at least in terms of combat. I guess that's where I'm coming from. I just really love the combat and the setting that I've not really felt like anything is missing because I'm having so much fun in the world, using the mechanics. It's probably blinded me to some of the weaknesses (exploration especially, I'm looking for new enemies to fight more than anything else).

What I like about the weapon variety is that I've "mained" 4 different weapons in my 2 play throughs. I started out using the axe, moved to Ludwigs sword, then I spent a long time with the rapier and now I'm using the scythe. In Dark Souls I got a weapon, I spent forever upgrading it, and I never used a different one in that play through. I stuck with the uchigatana or the zwiehander. I didn't even consider having multiple weapons because I didn't want to upgrade them, they weighed my character down and why would I need a different one? I already know which 2 I like the most. The. The boss soul weapons which were good in concept, but ultimately they were bad weapons. I don't know, I just didn't feel like the weapon variety added much. While in BB I've used so many different weapons in only 2 runs. They're all good, they're all viable, and I really like that. I can walk around with 4 weapons for all different needs and not roll around like a fatass.

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And I feel so radically different about the weapon variety, but I'd say that comes down a lot to different playstyles.  DS2 in particular just gets fucking wacky in the kind of builds you can make.  I made a low level build (capped with the Agape Ring) to screw around in the Bell Towers this week.  She's my "shield maiden".  In that, she bashes people in a face with shields until they die.  Disc Chime for lightning damage, Sanctum Shield for dark damage and Butterfly shield to poison people if they have decent magic resist.  It's goofy shit like that that I love the Souls games for, and that doesn't exist in Bloodborne.  Which is fine, BB is a different approach, but it's one of the things that keeps me going back to the older Souls games.

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I started a NG+ and this game is not slow and methodical at all the second time through.

Haha I started up Dark Souls again recently and it's definitely not slow or methodical the second time through! I think it's all about experience, tbh.

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I've just gone through the Upper Cathedral Ward, and

man, those tentacle face insight sucker enemies are perhaps the most unfun enemy in the game. They're acceptable enough in the way they're deployed earlier, as random hard enemies you mostly fight one-on-one and can mostly avoid if you wish, but holy shit, I went in the area with 50 insight and came out with 30. (Or maybe I just suck?)

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I've just gone through the Upper Cathedral Ward, and

man, those tentacle face insight sucker enemies are perhaps the most unfun enemy in the game. They're acceptable enough in the way they're deployed earlier, as random hard enemies you mostly fight one-on-one and can mostly avoid if you wish, but holy shit, I went in the area with 50 insight and came out with 30. (Or maybe I just suck?)

 

No, you don't just suck, they're a pretty bullshit enemy.  Pretty much the same thing happened to me.  I might have lost more than 20. 

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Yeah, I lost a bunch too. Luckily Insight isn't the worst thing in the world to lose in your first run, and you can always bell for it if there's something you really want.

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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.

 

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.

 

Just to follow up on the value of status effects in these games, people are starting to figure out the poisons in Bloodborne. 

 

There's a couple of videos are spoilered demonstrating what's been learned.  Surprisingly, and in contrast to every other Souls game, the best poisoning weapon in the game is also the biggest strength weapon, the wheel.  It's transformed attack hits with multiple, smaller attacks, making it capable of poisoning in just one or two hits, and resulting in significantly more damage against players and poison-weak enemies than just flat damage is capable of.  Watching that video I also learned I was playing ENTIRELY FUCKING WRONG WITH THE WHEEL.  Apparently you're supposed to pretend to be a meth head in a demolition derby, not play all tactical and shit. 

 

Also, rolling into people causes poison buildup if you have poison gems in your weapon, like you have a poison aura on.  No one knows if this is a bug or by design.  Given that DS2 had poison aura equipment, it could be intentional, but it feels an awful lot like a bug. 

 

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So that's what the change in the wheel does. 

 

I wish upgrade items were all purchasable with souls. Fuck farming chunks.

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I was about to finish the game and looked up how to get a +10 weapon, since I hadn't found anything.

Three or four runs into frenzytown in the Nightmare of Mensis and I decided I could do without that last +1.

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I was about to finish the game and looked up how to get a +10 weapon, since I hadn't found anything.

Three or four runs into frenzytown in the Nightmare of Mensis and I decided I could do without that last +1.

You can get to that area without dealing with the brainbeasts. There's a back door somewhere in the Micolash fight library area that you can get a key to. http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Iron+Door+Key

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