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osmosisch

Lords of the Fallen: Clunky Souls

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So this just came out, catching me at least by surprise: an attempt by someone to copy the Souls formula.

There's no character creation (you play as bald angryman), and it's got characters and cutscenes, but a lot of Souls' weighty, dangerous-feeling combat.

Here's a video showing it off a bit:

I couldn't resist picking it up, and have had a cracking good time so far. It's not as polished as Souls (crashes a decent amount for me), but it's got a lot more fancy graphics, that's good right?

Some tips:

- turn off the nvidia physx whatchamacallit in the advanced settings, it only serves to cause lag and adds nothing.

- to deal with shield dudes, use a charging shield bash, there's no effective guard-break like in Souls that I could find

- there's an extra potion flask (estus shard/bottle) in the tutorial area

- the 'shelter' miracle in the cleric tree actually also does a heal over time, mostly obviating the need to use your healing potions outside of emergencies. Playing paladin makes the game rather easy so far.

Anyway, it's serving very well to scratch my Souls itch until Bloodborne comes out and I can borrow someone's PS4.

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I've been going back and forth on whether or not i should check this out, i've mostly been hearing good things about it. It's weird that, for how much influence the Souls series appears to be having on the industry, nobody's really actually tried to copy the formula in its entirety until this.

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I would consider picking this game if it doesn't have mutant spiders as enemies. Fuck, I hate western RPGs and their obsession with spiders, it's pretty hard for an arachnophobic (and I'm not even close of people with real serious cases of phobia). I already tried overcoming this irrational fear but it just causes me severe headaches in the end.

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I tried playing it on launch before there was an option to disable PhysX turbulence, and man, did it cut down on framerate. I still played a few hours, and though I have some problems with it (the lack of a guard break makes for some particularly drawn-out and tedious fights), I'll probably keep at it for at least a little longer.

 

The game also has quite the obsession with lords. The lords are invading from another dimension, so you must go to where the lords come from and find a way to stop the lords from lording lord lord lord. Lord.

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I would consider picking this game if it doesn't have mutant spiders as enemies. Fuck, I hate western RPGs and their obsession with spiders, it's pretty hard for an arachnophobic (and I'm not even close of people with real serious cases of phobia). I already tried overcoming this irrational fear but it just causes me severe headaches in the end.

 

There are spider like creatures within about 30 minutes in.

 

I played up until the second boss and I really liked it. It is Dark Soulslite all the way but it will definitely scratch and itch.

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For what it's worth, I really feel I got my money's worth. There's a lot less imagination on display than Souls in many way,s but what there is is very pretty. It's reminding me of Space Marine more than anything in the visuals. Very Warhammery shoulderpads etc. As a lover of Warhammer Medieval that's no bad thing.

There's a lot of interesting little innovations as well, for example banking your XP rather than spending it on character upgrades nets you an item-drop and xp multiplier, and bosses drop a better version of their reward item when you fulfil a special condition as you kill them.

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Apparently today's update fixes a bunch of stability issues. The devs appear to be quite active which is nice to see.

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There's a lot of interesting little innovations as well, for example banking your XP rather than spending it on character upgrades nets you an item-drop and xp multiplier...

Unfortunately, it's actually just another thing they borrowed from Dark Souls, because this is very similar to the humanities system in the first Dark Souls, where having more active humanities variously increases many different stats including item discovery. (I just don't think many people realize that's what it actually did.)

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Unfortunately, it's actually just another thing they borrowed from Dark Souls, because this is very similar to the humanities system in the first Dark Souls, where having more active humanities variously increases many different stats including item discovery. (I just don't think many people realize that's what it actually did.)

?????????

 

well then...

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Isn't this made by some Witcher 2 devs? Like, one of the higher up Witcher 2 devs that left the company

 

yep

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomgop

 

Very interesting, especially considering that i would have said that Witcher 2 was probably the western RPG with the combat system that, prior to this, most felt like it had been somewhat inspired by the Souls games.

 

?????????

 

well then...

 

I mean, it sounds like it's at least functionally similar, right? The choice with humanities is that you can spend them to kindle a bonfire or restore to human or whatever, or you can keep them in your active stock and gain passive benefits from them, but at the risk of losing them when you die. Admittedly though, the system never really worked out that way, humanities are too rare and important to risk on running around with large stocks of active humanities for the relatively small passive buffs they can offer.

Still, it was a good idea, and if LotF can take that and retool it to the point where it works out, that's kinda cool.

 

(the lack of a guard break makes for some particularly drawn-out and tedious fights)

Are you sure about that? I understand it's so slavish in emulating Dark Souls that it even retains the kick, and that it even uses the same input of quick forward & light attack. If it does that much, i would be surprised if it didn't also retain the guard break property on that move.

 

For that matter, if there are parrying enemies in that game, the forward & heavy attack that i am sure is probably also there is probably also unparryable.

Actually, is there any pvp/co-op in LotF? It's sounded like it's purely solo, but i haven't followed that game too closely.

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I can confirm that, at least with the shield enemies I was having problems with, kicking does nothing. The heavy overhead strike does break their guard, but they recover so fast it may as well not happen at all. The Ram spell, however breaks guard and does a significant amount of damage, so that's good.

 

Humanity and the EXP multiplier have slight similarity, but are ultimately fairly different. Humanity confers a buff to item drop rate and curse resistance, but only up to a certain point (10 humanity, if memory serves). You also could recover it along with your souls at your blood stain. You only ever lost it if you lost your blood stain or spent it reverse-hollowing or kindling bonfires (I'm sure there are a few other more obscure ways, but none come to mind). The multiplier in LORDS does buff item discovery rate, but also boosts EXP gain by 1% for every enemy killed. I don't know if there's a limit, but I've gotten up to around a 60% boost before resetting it. The multiplier also goes away when you die (I'm pretty sure), or (more importantly) if you spend any experience at a checkpoint. It becomes a choice between better item/experience gain or increasing stats/spellcasting abilities.

 

There's also a mechanic where the amount of EXP held by your ghost (blood stain) starts to decay if you take too long to recover it, making things that much more risky.

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I thought the benefits from humanities capped at 30, so i had to go and confirm some information for myself and ended up finding some contradictory information from different wikis. Chaos weapon buffs definitely cap at 10, item discovery may cap at either 10 or 30, and curse resistance either caps at 30 or keeps going past that. People at least seem pretty firmly agreed on the physical defense and magic/lightning/fire resistance buffs increasing almost linearly until the carry limit of 99.

 

Also, dark hand attacks, like the ones the darkwraiths use, are the other way you can lose humanities.

Anyways, that's kind of taking things off topic, i guess.

 

In LotF, I understand you can also resupply at checkpoints without resetting enemy spawns, just as long as you don't spend your experience? That seems sort of crazy, like it kind of breaks one of the fundamental elements of the Souls formula. I guess they want you to be able to resupply without burning off your multiplier, but if you could reset spawns on top of that, you'd too easily be able to farm up a multiplier.

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Unfortunately, it's actually just another thing they borrowed from Dark Souls, because this is very similar to the humanities system in the first Dark Souls, where having more active humanities variously increases many different stats including item discovery. (I just don't think many people realize that's what it actually did.)

I knew that, but I think there's a substantial difference between applying that system to XP (always useful) and liquid humanity (can't spend more than 1 usefully unless you're doing covenant stuff).

e: nevermind, didn't refresh

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Checkpoints are also the only way to actually save your game, because there are no interstitial autosaves when you traverse areas.

 

Enemy respawning is also a little weird. Though individual areas might wrap around on themselves, LotF is ultimately very linear. Areas are separated by doors and such that cut to a loading screen when you proceed. Exiting and re-loading into an area also respawns enemies as if you had rested at a checkpoint. I think it might do the same thing when you quit and then continue playing.

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Everything about the approach to the design makes me want to play it, since I simply couldn't get through any souls games... but the world building and tone is way off from what I'd want, especially since Souls nailed it so well.

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Killed a couple more bosses, accidentally fulfilling the secret condition on them it seems - the weapons I got are orange and do cool extra things.

I like how the challenge portals make you backtrack a fair amount because it makes your power curve really noticeable - I can just dash through areas that gave me trouble earlier. They've also taken the trouble to change the monster spawns a bit here and there as you progress the story.

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What are people's opinions on how this game compares to Dark Souls 2? That game was even closer to Dark Souls than this appears to be, but even that managed to bugger with the core game in ways that made me not want to play it.

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This game is less similar to Dark Souls 1 than Dark Souls 2, is if that's what you're asking. If being different from Dark Souls 1 is not something you want I'm not sure you'll enjoy this, to be honest. For me it's the differences as much as the similarities that make it interesting.

Things I like:

- the ability to actually 'tank up' - physDef does way more in this game than Souls

- slower combat (at least with the big fuckoff two-handers)

- warhamstery art style and lovely environmental design

- bosses all have challenge conditions to get a better reward

- comprehensible stat system (especially DS2 is just over the top with this imo)

- no grinding upgrade materials

- every class has spells and a good excuse to use them usually

Neutral:

- there's just a whole lot less game. I think this is also a matter of the devs knowing their budget/limits though.

Things I dislike:

- the game gets a bit trivialised by wearing heavy armor, to the point that I'm considering trying a restart with an agility character. It feels weird finishing most bosses in one or two tries.

- the ranged option feels kind of tacked-on and not so interesting even given the customisation options you get later. That might just be personal playstyle preference though.

- the spells all involve a flaming dude which makes it feel kind of samey

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Well I don't mind being different from Dark Souls (presumably that's what Bloodborne will be) as long as it isn't different in arbitrary or broken ways, which is what Dark Souls 2 felt like. It seemed like a relevant comparison to Lords of the Fallen in that both games seem to be aping Dark Souls while attempting to put their own spin on things.

 

Something that really bothered me about DS2 is how much of the enemy encounters and bosses relied on overwhelming you with enemy numbers. In my opinion the Dark Souls combat system completely shits itself in group combat unless you have one of the handful of weapons with long horizontal arcs, but the excess of it in DS2 just made the game feel broken especially considering it removed certain invincibility frames.

 

Another thing was the collectible life gems removing most of the threat of damage later in the game. This was a problem in Demon's Souls, and Dark Souls fixed it with the limited estus flasks. I don't know what on Earth they were thinking putting both systems in Dark Souls 2.

 

Dark Souls seemed a bit stacked towards DEX and/or INT builds so playing a tank might be an interesting change of pace for me.

 

Less content is good as long as it is quality content. Dark Souls 2 felt like too much quantity over quality.

 

Does this game have multiplayer at all? I don't think I've seen this discussed anywhere so I assume not.

 

I think I'll give this game a shake if it goes on sale. There seem to be a lot of complaints of technical issues so I'll give it some time anyway.

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Well, since none of the things you mention particularly bothered me I'm not sure my opinion is all that valuable to you, but I can at least address the specific questions.

- there's not much reliance on ganging up on you in this game. There's bosses where adds are a thing, but overall it's more one-on-one than DS2 I would say. It feels pretty fair. There's an O&S equivalent from what I hear but I haven't gotten to it yet.

- there's no healing consumables, but there is a healing over time spell if you start as a cleric, and mana recharges over time, so depending on class choice you can have effectively infinite health if you're patient. The cast animation is lengthy though so it's not like you can just spam it within encounters, where you'll mostly still need to rely on "estus".

- there's no multiplayer

- the most recent patch has resolved all the crash issues I was having (went from once per hour or so to none in a while evening of play)

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I liked O&S, hard as it was, because it seemed pretty trivial to separate them for a few one-on-one attacks.

 

Healing spells and regen mana sounds like an opportunity for cheesing. I remember Demon's Souls had a similar loophole. I don't have the patience to use those sorts of tactics these days so it doesn't matter. At least it means you must rarely have the problem of depleting your healing items and gimping yourself before getting to a boss.

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