A Mentally Challenged Man's Souls Retrospective: Prepare For Cynicism Edition

So...how about that Elden Ring DLC huh?

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Whew, that was quite the journey. If the last one was a roller coaster, this was a ticket to Mars. Was gonna go through some points, like how much of Frieda's moveset is parryable, but it looks like this fight's over.

I judge it no-contest (no winner or loser). Anyway, the fighters are being shuffled off-stage to make way for an announcement. I'm hearing talks of Shadows and Erdtrees. Here's hoping any bad blood between them gets patched up in public or private. Last thing anyone wants is a lingering grudge.

> DLC
Yeah I sold my copy but nothing a little waving of the black skull&bones flag won't fix.

> what would it take to get me back
Honestly, good question.

I'm curious what they'll do. Having just another dungeon appear on the overworld isn't really what I'm interested in. Honestly what might pull me in the most is that the DLC is a small little, but extremely densly packed, island that you can visit. Have it be chuck full of new loot, little but well designed dungeons (no chalice-lite) and maybe a single big dungeon. Think that'd be pretty cool.

Not sure if anyone ever played WoW, but they had a pretty interesting concept for an expansionpack at one point where the entire world suffers from an earthquake and it sort of 'remixes' the entire game which was neat (didn't age well though since the changes were rushed and bad).

So maybe that'd be cool too, the game floods or suffers from a massive earthquake and the world is slightly changed, might make for fun exploration again.

Just spitting ofc.

(if you don't want to read any of this, skip to the thirtieth line)

> that is a lot

it's less than in other souls

> i don't believe that

i could say the same thing

> what do you have against democracy, bud?

arbitrary democracy isn't democracy, "i think the people can decide for themselves who knows" but what if Black Adam and Roy agrees with me? It would be 2 (they) vs 1 (you), so I'd be right in that case? fuck logic

you are just shitting me, saying that I don't know about souls games just because we disagree

> mongoloid" is a term for people with downs syndrome

okay but it's polysemy and anyway this is still disgusting

> the guy relished the thought of me being tortured for all eternity.

spoiler, birdman: it's because we have different opinions

> saying that you don't know what you're talking about is not an insult-- jokes aren't insults either.

it's still "trashing me", you focused more on my persona than the discussion itself; jokes CAN be insulting (like the ones you did) and you know that.

> since then you've compared me to Hitler,

this was AFTER your last reply, so I'm in the position. Sorry if you felt insulted (i guess you don't know what sorry means)

> called me a "youtuber", called me a "Redditor",

lol

> called me "disgusting", called me "childish", said i deserve to "burn in hell", said i'm displaying "egocentric behavior", and accused me of "gaslighting" you multiple times.

and, except for "burn in hell", everything I said is accurate. disgusting because the offenses and jokes you did, childish because you don't know how to discuss, egocentric because you don't know how to accept that you are wrong, gaslighting because you are distorting my words and lying just to look like you're right.

offenses: "autistic butthurt mongoloid"
jokes: "PMSD (Post Malenia Stress Disorder), PFSD (Post Friede Stress Disorder)"
don't know how to discuss: "says the person who admitted that he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about (is that even an argument? this is ad hominem)"
don't know how to accept that you are wrong: "you'll find that not once did i ever insult you. saying that you don't know what you're talking about is not an insult-- jokes aren't insults either.", "i don't believe that"
gaslighting: "and arrogantly claims that everything else is useless." (not useless, just that I didn't explore it properly OR these tools aren't as efficient as R1s and dodge-rolls), "says that the bosses in DS3/ER are cheap bullshit" (nope, I argued only about Malenia, Margit and 3rd phase Sister Friede. Yeah, I did talk about "animation reading" and demanding movesets, but this is not claiming that the bossfights are CHEAP BULLSHIT lmao) "he thinks just because DS3/ER kicked his butt" (DS3 is easy and yeah ER kicked my ass but except for Malenia and Margit [and I like Margit], I never said anything about the game's difficulty)

Anyway, either you lie or exaggerate my statement to look like you're in the right position

> i'm not going to reply to any of your posts anymore.

I'm glad we are done.

Roy

> So...how about that Elden Ring DLC huh?

Conceptually, looks great. I care a little about the lore so it will be nice to read some theories or someshit

About the content: I expect the same quality as the main legacy dungeons (the main ROUTE) so the bar is high. And comparing to FS DLCs -- what do you think of them?

I like them all (except for Ariandel) but the only ones that reached the quality of main game were DS2 (iron king) and BB (The Old Hunters), imo.

I think the Old Hunters wins in terms of bang for your buck, though they did say it was originally 2 DLCs that they fused into one so that is kinda cheating. Artorias is great, but also feels like it was just cut-content that they finished for the DLC since it really fits like a glove.

Dark Souls 2 DLC ofc I love, I think they all elevate that mediocre game to one of my favourites. Especially Brume Tower which just blew my mind at the time.

Never played the DLC to Dark Souls 3 though due to me burning out on that game.

In general I feel FromSoft is really good at both DLC and patches. They are one of the few companies that tend to really elevate their games with them instead of making them feel like "ah easy 5$ per costumer".

>what would the dlc need to have to bring you back into the fold?
*Able to carry thousands of arrows.
*Extreme range sniper bow (but will settle for current bows).
*Enemies being unable to dodge arrows.

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> defiled chalice
The place where we seperate the men from the boys. It is quite brutal, and the later one is even worse with honestly a pretty weirdly chosing boss in a weirdly small area. I do remember really enjoying beating the boss down the line.

> ludwig
An absolute wall of a boss, legit one where I considered giving up at the time as I recall. So many moves that blend together, very hard to read, and two phases make him a nightmare. Was a bit confused by your typing as he's the first boss as I recall, before Maria and Living Failures, right?

> chalice
I've done them once all the way through to the end for the 'secret boss' which honestly wasn't worth it, but glad I did it, but never doing it again haha.

> Ariandel
I recall a lot of disappointment about this one too, from the fanbase that is (since I didn't play it). It's short length and lack of content especially.

Giving ER another shot. One of my friends here is playing it and wants co-op.

Managed to get the Serpent Bow from the start. I don't understand stats in these games so will need to read a guide.

Found the poison arrow merchant.

If this setup works I might play through to the end.

Will never bother with PvP. Don't see how I could ever land a shot on a real player. Arrows are way to slow and they'll just dodge or block easily.

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Any good early soul farming methods?

I killed that huge dragon already.

Poison is working reasonably well. Only problem is I keep running out of arrows.
Guess I'll keep boosting dex and arc.

> birdman
Reading you get so worked up over bows, it's a miracle you didn't drop NGII by doing a bow-only run and being walled early on haha

> boss runs
Hardest one for me was Defiled's chalice final boss, which was bonkers, and the final DLC boss. I still don't fully grasp that one to be honest. Feels like they grabbed a boss from NGII and slapped it into Bloodborne.

> ROM
Funnily enough my first fight with him was back when the memoryleak was an issue, so I thought he was a joke encounter. If you're unaware, the original release had a issue with memory where, if you left the game on for more than a few hours, the AI would break and they'd just stand still and do nothing. I was playing a pretty long session, and ROM just stood there doing nothing and died. Wasn't until NG+ that I found out he was actually a boss.

>Reading you get so worked up over bows, it's a miracle you didn't drop NGII by doing a bow-only run and being walled early on haha
It's only really an issue in these types of RPGs.

Though if possible, in action games, I'll gravitate towards melee weapons with the longest range.

I keep forgetting that jumping while shooting is possible. Was able to easily beat one of those NPC invaders with it. Normally they'd dodge every shot. Even while they were attacking it was hard to land one because the bow takes so long to fire.

But the jumping shot comes out instantly. Totally owned them.

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> Micolash
Though he's not the most crazy boss, I always felt he's a good example of that 'wacky unique boss' that I felt was missing in newer souls-games. He's really interesting and different and it's the type of fight you'll only see in games from this developer.

> frenzy dudes
Never really understood what makes them tick, I heard you can just look away or break LoS but it rarely works.

> boss
Yeah I'm refering to Orphan of Kos. What an insane fight that is.

First ER boss is like easy mode. Why do so many say he's hard?

A lot of players did the game more lineair, so he was their first fight straight out of the gate. At which point he's pretty bonkers.

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> pizza cutter
It is an insanely easy to use high reward weapon yeah, also just super fun thankfully.

In general I do love the weapons in this game, it's such a cool concept and it's a shame it's suck in just this one.

> end-game
If you're not planning on doing repeats, I do recommend backing up your save on a USB or cloud or w/e so you can replay the final section, unlike most games it doesn't ask for NG+, it immediately brings you to NG+ and there is a 'hidden' final boss.

> horror
One thing that you might have missed, playing it now, is that the Lovecraftian element was completely hidden from players until they got their hands on it. It was constantly marketed as "the werewolf game". I have fantastic memories playing this game with a friend (so, both playing at the same time, chatting) where we slowly unravel just what kind of a fucking weird shit happened. Truly a mindfuck game.

>what Roy said and also you're (i assume) playing keep-away with a bow so you may be lacking in dps but you're playing an extremely defensive playstyle if you're keeping your distance and dodging shit by sprinting.
Yes I stay as far from him as possible but he easily catches up. I just dodge and wait for openings.

>having fun with the bow? i never tried that in ER.
It's OK but not enough arrow capacity. So I need to farm until I can buy max arrows so I'll always be able to restock at bonfires.

>rot
Scarlet Rot? Sounds way stronger than poison. Maybe I'll carry poison and rot arrows eventually.

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>rot
This bow takes arc so any status arrow should be good.

How do you co op? Tried to get it working last night with my friend (same country) but nothing would work. Reafmd some guides and seems we were doing everything right.

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This has been an adventure to read. Takes me back to when we had our first female forum member, who noted she was really excited to join the conversations and was going to read some backlogged topics. And literally two days later she deleted her account. I mean, with quality posts like this, it's art man, art.

> boom hammer
I still hate that I have a PvP toon with this weapon and it is just so ass. I really like that mace the most, but it is so fucking late game.

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I really need to catch up on my reading of this topic.. i'm criminally behind.

I think with Bloodborne, at the time, it felt like the first step forward if you get me. They were ditching a lot of the RPG elements in favor of pure action, with some creative ideas and the typical "fromsoftware worldbuilding" in there. As a result, when DS3 launched, some (me included) were miffed.

I still wonder what current fromsoftware would play like as a pure action title, free from all these restrictions.

>hey there

See, this is the shit you don't get fom ai. It's not bad as a tutor, and pulls up info you didn't know, but gives the most generic school report answers that only someone who didn't care about the topic would be fine accepting.

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>Old Hunter Bone
Gives you LESS iframes than a normal dodge, not more. The ratio of iframes to recovery frames is also worse than normal. The benefits of the Bone are purely mobility; dodges take less time and travel more distance.

>Beast Roar
Massive knockback, extremely fast cast time, and no stamina cost. Instead of spending stamina to evade, just Roar and you'll even regen stamina during the animation. Numerous offensive uses. Can also reflect any incoming projectile.

>Empty Phantasm Shell
Exactly the same damage as Bolt and Fire Paper, a flat 80 per hit. The only difference comes from the elemental defense stats of the target you are hitting. Shell is a utility spell for non-Arcane builds, it's mediocre but it comes free with Roar and Bone at 15 ARC so you may as well use it against enemies weak to Arcane.

>Augur of Ebrietas
Hyperarmor on demand. Parries like a gun. Very high damage and scaling, easily the most powerful 'gun' in the game. AOE can hit groups of enemies. Can perform fast backstabs when manually charging an R2 would be unthinkable, and can even backstab at range. I could go on. One of the best abilities in the game, has endless uses.

>Tools don't deal damage until 99 Arcane
To show that this is wrong, I'm going to give examples from an Arcane build playthrough. It started with Cruel Fate (10 VIT/14 ARC) and got 12 STR for Tonitrus then pumped VIT/ARC, no chalice dungeons, no DLC content, no grinding:

13 VIT/25 ARC in Old Yharnam. Hunter's Torch+0 kills the enemies here in 2-4 hits, which makes the damage equal to a character with 25 Str or Skl using a +3 weapon. A +0 torch, I shit you not.
20 VIT/25 ARC fighting Vicar Amelia. With a Flamesprayer+3 you can quite literally defeat her by holding L2 and pushing the left stick in her direction. You don't even need to dodge.
22 VIT/32 ARC in Forbidden Woods. Augur of Ebrietas OHKOs the basic human enemies from full health. It very nearly OHKOs the snake-parasite-humans. Executioner's Glove very nearly OHKOs the gigantic snakeballs, Augur 2HKOs them. Hunter's Torch+3 OHKOs the dogs and crows. You can spam Executioner's Glove to kill Shadows of Yharnam from a safe distance, But using Augur mixed with melee/viscerals/Flamesprayer is faster.
24 VIT/40 ARC fighting Rom the Vacuous Spider. By spamming Executioner's Glove, Rom will die before getting a chance to teleport.
30 VIT/48 ARC in Upper Cathedral Ward. Flamesprayer+6 can clear this place by itself. Tiny Tonitrus kills Celestial Emissary in 4 shots which takes about 7 seconds, other stuff works fine if you wanna conserve bullets. Arcane Hunter Axe+6 kills brainsuckers in here with 2 R1s, they're not weak to arcane so it would likely 1HKO them if it was Fire or Bolt infused. Ebrietas dies in 4 or 5 casts of A Call Beyond, it takes 15 to 20 seconds, Ebrietas resists arcane damage btw.

>a handful of weapons
Arcane has more weapon choice than any of the other attack stats, it can use nearly any weapon in the game with only one stat, and even select one of three damage types for each. An Arcane user can keep Threaded Cane in one slot and Kirkhammer in the other without diluting their build, if they so choose.

>Strength as primary stat
Kirkhammer, Hunter Axe, and Saw Cleaver are all very powerful weapons obtained before Gascoigne that can carry a beginner through the game. Tonitrus is also really strong from the moment you find it, whether you're playing pure Strength or pure Arcane or anywhere between. Kirkhammer in particular is capable of heinous stuff like spamming R1 vs phase 3 Gascoigne. 50 Vit/Str Kirkhammer might be the easiest and most brainless build to beat Bloodborne.

>Skill weapons have quicker attacks, less stamina consumption,
Strength weapons have higher base damage, higher stat scaling, higher gem scaling, higher stagger and knockdown potential, hyperarmor on more attacks, and higher rally. At almost all stages of the game there are more Strength weapons available than Skill weapons. Strength gets access to the Cannons. Untricked Kirkhammer uses less stamina than every single Skill weapon except Blade of Mercy, btw

With regard to parries, downed enemies such as from a parry take more than 2x damage from all sources. Arcane builds get enormous damage from using Flamesprayer on downed foes. Strength builds simply use charged R2 with their weapon of choice to make downed bosses explode. Strength weapons will also down bosses more easily/frequently than Skill weapons, at least until the very end of the game when Skill builds unlock the godly Church Pick and Burial Blade. On regular enemies, visceral followed by charged R2 is enough to kill pretty much anything regardless of your build.

And to be clear, I don't think Skill builds are bad; Blade of Mercy is my personal favorite weapon. Bloodborne has better balance than any of the Souls games IMHO.

>Defiled chalice too hard
It's lategame and totally optional. I wish the Souls games had hard side content.

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I swear Jackie you do this to yourself. But boys, play nice. I don't want this topic to constantly be this sort of weird infighting and 'no u' in my day to day. Think of the newcomers. And the children.

That said, some interesting notes.

> hunterbone less iframes
Jesus.

> roar
Cool notes, never really went into it.

> augur
Again, good notes. It's been nearly a decade it feels like since I beat this title last, so it's interesting to see all these more indepth notes that were absent at the time. Cheers for sharing.

> hard sidecontent
It sucks that it is generally removed or absent in general, or just bad. Soulslikes have dabbled in it, but I kind of return to my original statement that most soulsfans don't want difficult content. Nioh1 had a section of "free dlc" missions that were incredibly difficult, while WoLong had a single side mission where you fought three bosses at once. Both were nerfed after redditors got their hands on it. "Unfair!" they screamed. I swear.

> build recommendation
I think the downside is, as you Jackie notes, a lot of elements are dependant on futuresight knowledge (and also DLC access). If you know the ins and outs, the game is quite easily broken which is the case for most action-RPGs. See also Kingdom Hearts, or any Dark Souls for that matter. My first Dark Souls character is still on my PS3 and is a ... sight to behold. Ironically my SL1 char has a higher AR rating, which is crazy. Goes to show how much game/item knowledge goes in those games. That of course is the appeal.

> kirkhammer bad
That's quite the statement

> Axe
Was literally known as the 'spin to win' casual item upon launch. A lot of casual players didn't understand how the Saw worked at the time, and the spinmove was pretty good all rounder. Hell we didn't even know DEX increased parry damage until some players shared footage of a single parry just demolishing a boss.

> Bloodborne has better balance than any of the Souls games IMHO (rorc)
I do think that's more a happy result of the game having less options/rpg content than actual design though.

> chalice optional
Gonna side with Rorc here. I mean, you can choose to do it or not. I did them once and never again. Sure there's side content locked behind it, but it IS optional (thankfully). My main gripe though is that you have to go through it constantly if you want high stuff on every char. Think it would've been better if once you beat a chalice, it was 'unlocked' account-wide. Would speed things up immensely.

>But boys, play nice.
Not interested in any argument, I only posted to try to clarify how Arcane works and what it does, there's a lot of confusion and ignorance about it.

>a lot of elements are dependant on futuresight knowledge
A new player will likely miss out on a lot of the Bloodtinge and Arcane stuff, making those stats less appealing for sure. Still, I think there are enough tools available for a blind player to succeed using a stat focus of their choice. Flamesprayer will beat the whole game, just like Soul Arrow will beat every Souls game; admittedly not glamorous.

>if you're a hybrid build
Arcane tools scale smoothly, there are no softcaps or sudden jumps, if your Arc is slightly lower than it should be then your damage will suffer but only slightly. You can take the examples from my previous post and lower the Arcane stat by 10 points. Hunter's Torch, Molotovs, Flamesprayer, and Augur will still be reasonable damage-dealers throughout the game. You won't get to completely stunlock Vicar Amelia though, lol.

>backstabs against what?
Orphan of Kos for starters. Or anything else in the game that is possible to backstab. You can think of Augur of Ebrietas as a fully-charged R2, that doesn't need to charge and doesn't cost stamina. Even if your Arcane stat never goes above 18, it's incredibly valuable as a utility tool.

>at what level?
Any level.
Evelyn+10 has a whole 140 base AR, and 1.35 scaling factor.
Repeating Pistol+10 has 200 base AR and 0.8 scaling factor, and costs 2 bullets per shot.
Augur of Ebrietas+0 has 220 base AR and 2.0 scaling factor.
It outdamages guns by every measure at every level, usually by a huge amount. It doesn't require upgrade materials or even a weapon slot. You can use it while 2handing or with a shield/gun of your choice.

>parry
When I say "parry and then use Flamesprayer" I mean using Flamesprayer instead of a visceral attack. The reason you do this is because, if you have been levelling Arcane and upgrading the Flamesprayer, it will do more damage than a visceral attack, due to the multiplier. As an example of what I mean, consider Blood-Starved Beast. A character with 25 Skill performing a visceral attack will deal less than 500 damage to BSB, depending on their exact character level and gems. A character with 18 Arcane and a Flamesprayer+2, parrying and then immediately firing Flamesprayer will deal 700 or more to BSB. On top of that, you can use Oil Urns and Bone Marrow Ashes beforehand to increase the damage even further. A character with Flamesprayer+2 and 18 Arc can kill BSB from half life with one backstab or parry.

You might call that trick "in-depth knowledge" but so is the fact that visceral attacks benefit from Skill stat. There's certainly nothing in-game to tell a beginner what stats visceral damage scales with.

>Kirkhammer
How to Use Kirkhammer:
Gascoigne Phase 1--spam R1 to stunlock him
Phase 2--spam R1 to stunlock him
Phase 3--spam R1 to stunlock him
Blood-Starved Beast--spam R1 to stunlock it
Scourge Beasts--spam R1 to stunlock them
Trenchcoat Mafia--spam R1 to stunlock them
Kidnappers/Bagmen--spam R1 to stunlock them
Ogre dudes with bricks--spam R1 to stunlock them
Snake-parasites in Forbidden Woods--spam R1 to stunlock them
Enemy Hunter NPCs--spam R1 to stunlock them

When I said Kirkhammer was brainless, I meant it. It even has aim assist in the form of explosive shockwaves.

>you might wanna test Cane's untricked for example and then get back to me
Untricked Cane uses 17 stamina for R1, Kirkhammer uses only 16 stamina. Easy to see this if you have a character with 40END/160 stamina, since Kirk will reach exactly 0 stamina. I didn't need to look it up or test it either btw, I learned this one in the trenches; a 1 stamina difference is relevant more often than you probably think. Untricked Blade of Mercy uses 15 stamina for R1, but because it's so reliant on quickstep attacks, BoM burns through stamina quicker than a lot of other weapons. So IMO the best weapons in terms of conserving stamina are Beast Claw and Stake Driver.

>I do think that's more a happy result of the game having less options/rpg content than actual design though.
Definitely true, but I would also give partial credit to some mechanics like Blood Vials/Bullets.

What even is this Topic?

Also it's a shame about them nerfing that Wo Long Mission. It was unfair and frustrating but that was largely due to things like the bad camera, switching lock on targets being finicky, Fatal Strike audio cues being difficult to hear when enemies are a distance away, too much start-up on iframes for finishing blows, not being able to block attacks from any direction like previous TN games etc etc...

Even with these issues though do people really just want the whole game to be a boring 1 on 1 parry fest. I don't get the appeal...

the prodigal son returns

i deleted my posts out of a self-conscious thing, felt weird having my posts on here without me here, but i regret it because a few weeks ago my ssd shit itself out of nowhere and all of my posts and notes (and everything else i had on my pc) went with it. i'm gonna start backing my shit up, i'm such a lazy bastard. steam cloud saves has mostly covered my ass with my games but DS3 and DS2 didn't make it. with DS2 i was still at the beginning so restarting that is no big deal at all but i'm done with DS3 permanently, i'm not doing all that shit again; if i want to play a game like that i'll play the better game ER.

so yeah gonna have to start fresh on this. i will continue my Souls adventure soon-- these kinds of games are big mental tolls on me due to the wiki-diving college course learning obscure nature of them, the exploration aspects, and the horror aspects so i haven't continued my Souls adventure since i stopped posting, needed a break. i've only replayed a bit of BB and ER since, and the only progress on new DS games i've made since was that i played a bit of DS1, got through the early game but i made the mistake of going with a Str build because i forgot how bad Str was in the early games-- i was just pancaking everything, mashing through bosses, etc. so i'll be starting over.

before i continue my Souls adventure i'm gonna recap + finish my thoughts on BB and the series in general and i'm also playing other games right now so it may not be immediate but it'll be soon. i had an emulator ready for Demon's Souls but now i need to set all that up again. i will also be playing DS2, not gonna skip that one; i'm really curious about giving that a second chance/a proper first chance.

I can only wonder what happend here.

> backups
I highly recommend Google Drive. I've got a 5tb subscription, it's a 100 bucks per year. So I basically have all my files, pictures, saves - everything is on that system and it's great knowing I have it stored in the Cloud. Also have a physical backup every month, which is costless (outside of having the actual drive ofc. which was like a 100 bucks).

> he returns
Welcome!

> what happened here
There's an actual 'achievement' on this site for having participated in this topic, that should tell you enough haha

>the prodigal son returns

Welcome Jackie... Darkness always wait you... *maniacal giggles*

some general thoughts so far on this series (having gone through ER, DS3, and BB, with a bit of DS1 and DS2):

Roy and i were talking past each other in our argument-- i didn't understand why these games were getting shit on-- but after reading his and others thoughts on this series, i get it. i came into this series from a different perspective than anyone else here: i only played DeS and DS1 beforehand and i played them so long ago (when they first came out) that my memory of them was too fuzzy and distant that i wasn't comparing ER or the others to them but rather as standalone games, and i hadn't yet gotten to the earlier games of the series in my retrospective to compare them to the new ones. if i look at it from the perspective of you guys-- (ex-)Souls fans that want a proper sequel-- then almost everything you guys say is undeniable.

from that perspective, i would be forced to say that the latter Souls games are garbage (although i would include BB in that) and that the only post-DeS games that have any value are DS1 and DS2 because they're the only ones that refined the unique elements of the series and innovated. i don't disagree with that, i just enjoy ER's combat and can look at it as its own thing. but it is really disappointing to look back at the beginning of the series and see how the potential has been totally squandered, with the series completely giving up pretty early on. my biggest condemnation of the recent games is that not only did they not improve/innovate beyond the combat-- which that would already be heinous enough-- but they actually regressed in every instance.

pvp: the pvp was already disregarded starting from BB with the covenants dropped. covenants made a return for DS3 but they didn't do anything new with it and it lacked the majority of the new stuff that DS1 and 2 came up with. and now where pvp is at in the series is a complete joke with ER: with no covenants, complete emphasis on matchmaking arena pvp (impossible to invade for lots of reasons like the bonfires right before a boss, the open world, zero incentive for someone to opt in to being invaded with a community that mostly believes that invaders should be sent to prison on murder charges, and even if you eventually connect to someone you'll be ganked by 4 people). all of the unique things about the pvp in this series has had the final nail driven into its coffin.

human/soul form: the human/soul form mechanic was abandoned for BB and ER (the Rune shit in ER doesn't count) and it was best done in DeS. i'm sick of getting showered in X items to restore body form in every Souls game i play; i remember when getting your body back actually meant something like in DeS.

world tendency: world tendency/anything like it was never attempted again after DeS.

bonfires: bonfires keep getting shorter in distance/more numerous in every progressive recent game to the point where in ER they don't even exist anymore. which means runbacks are also gone. someone could say "sites of graces" but when you trip over them every minute + have them before the bosses then that's not a bonfire anymore, that's just an auto-save.

quite literally nothing new in these games past DS2 beyond combat stuff. i could go on and i will once i play the older games more. this series started from a game that did so many interesting things that created a sub-genre to now being a series that shakes at the thought of doing anything new while every unique element of it has just been whittled and culled into nothing with every progressive game past DS2.

my biggest gameplay problem with these games by far is that the mob combat is wayyyyyyyy too easy. it goes a little something like this: 1. get first hit in (which i could do blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back while shooting heroin), 2. stunlock to death, 3. win. this covers so fucking many of the mob fights that i've just been running past every mob in BB & ER on my replays. interestingly, the only game so far that doesn't have this issue has been DS2, which is the game i took a big fat stinky dump on when i tried it earlier in the year and dropped in the early game. DS2 significantly (can't stress "significantly" enough here) remixed the enemies and upped the challenge of the mob gameplay in the DLC (and not just for the DLC areas but for the whole game).

i'm still unsure about how they made the mob gameplay difficult but either way at this point i'll take that over braindead combat any day of the week. i have to give major props to DS2 for this; this is the only game in the series that made a change like that with its DLC and the only Souls i've played so far that has not had braindead mob combat (not judging DS1 yet as i was face-tanking enemies with a Demon's Greataxe). i'm going to have the biggest shit-eating grin on my face if i end up turning around on DS2 and calling it an underrated masterpiece.

>highly recommend Google Drive

i'll look into that

>Welcome!

>Welcome Jackie

thank you thank you

I don't know where to put it, but with such a title I think it belongs here hah.

I've been thinking about concepts of progression, pacing and difficulty and using souls as a polygon for said ideas. I think they're often confused due to high overlap between those concepts. Especially in the case of souls, in which people confused 2 first ideas with the latter.

Souls game excel at progression and pacing , but not so much at difficulty. Idea of pacing is a density of playtime (gameplay, decision-making etc.) during span of the game, whereas progression is how shit changes in time and how player advances through the game. Souls often start with difficulty spike from the get-go when player character is at its weakest, but as the game progresses and character grows in-strenght, challenge decreases.

There are still some difficulty spikes in a late-game, but they're more of a roadblocks that give meaning to progression. This creates this myth of difficulty.

Another big fat bulshit is "souls have only one difficulty", but they don't, they're just not selectable. NG+ is biggest fucking snoozefest I've witnessed, It adds nothing interesting or gives reason why play it as opposed to normal new game. It lacks any interesting modfier that would make it interesting and it lack progression as well.

Only Sekiro (and ds2, but I've played it very long time) play with it to a degree, but still, I think going charmless in NG+ isn't all that interesting since game normally conditions you to perfect parry and different endings are nice progression options, but it's disconnected from difficulty, since it's not exclusive to NG+ and optional.

For context, I've been playing Deathsmiles and it connects progression with difficulty via its selectable stages and ranks. After selecting rank 3 enough times, game enters Death mode, so that gives player incentive to do harder stages early. That's just of gist of it, but the exection is more nuanced than that.

> difficulty selection in Souls
Always been a myth yeah. If anything, the beauty of the system is that you can decide how difficult you want it. On the flipside, this is only relevant on repeat playthroughs and (despite what they might say) most Soulsplayers only play an entry once (at best). So some players will have a super easy time while others are unknowingly doing a super hard playthrough.

Mate of mine mained Magic in DarkSouls2 Vanilla, which was broken as fuck. So he felt it was too easy. Meanwhile I used a whip since I felt that was cool and it took...for...fucking...ever. Consequently my next run used Faith and I just lightning-speared the game into pieces. It's more like you accidentatly run into a lower difficulty mode by the sheer luck that what you think is cool is now broken or not.

One thing I feel Souls does very well too is give an illusion of progression by, instead of offering 10 enemies with complex movesets, it offers 100 enemies with 2 moves each. Bloodborne has unique enemies for every single area, some of which only appear once in the entire game; but they also have the mechanical complexity of a Sony game.

This is why I often hate the whole "Nioh needs more enemy variety" statement. As Nioh has less quantity of enemies, but the quality is vastly superior. Even a basic Oni has more moves and mechanics attached to him than the entire Souls library barring maybe it's most end-game foes.

> NG+
They were so fucking close with Dark Souls 2's re-release. New enemy locations, special invasions, new items - there was an actual reason to play and explore again. Think they learned that nobody played NG+ and most players just want to steamroll. You saw this with the recent Lords of the Fallen which had a pretty interesting NG+ mode, forcing you to really play with the map. Firma knows more about that @TheFirmament1

>As difficult you want it
I kind of have to object to this notion as well ha. Isn't it true for any game? You can play most game ignore certain mechanic and make a game harder for youself. It steps into challenge run territory, whereas in Souls it's result of rpg mechanics, but in one case and another, there is a case of commitment. Not to mention, challenge runs are popular in souls as well. So while it is true, uniqueness of it is overstatted a bit I feel.


>DS2
I disliked it and Scholar of the First when they released. Like many I didn't like its disjointed world design.  Elevator has been talked to death, but bonfire from Iron Keep to Belfry Sol is even dumber. I have go through whole different location, because my character can't pull up on waist height ledge?  You could do it in DeS.

On the other hand, Aldia's Keep in SotF with its monsters that can break out of cages is more interesting than vanila's. Game really abandoned believability for the sake of experimentation, something which I like in the retrospect. It has sort of diamond in the rough to vibe to it.

That said, I've never went to NG+ in it, because at time I was totaly disinterested in doing it.