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Internet Kraken posted:Yeah its a weird thing that was first implemented in Bloodborne and carried over to DS3. Not sure why From hates players running around naked so much. I assume it was done because they were trying to give the player more base defense, without compromising their design decision of making armor be mostly cosmetic so you can wear whatever you want. The damage increase from each missing piece makes sense from a game design standpoint because that way they can have armor protect the player more, without increasing its stats and throwing off the delicate damage/resistance balancing act these games have.
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Dec 26, 2016 02:44
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CJacobs posted:I assume it was done because they were trying to give the player more base defense, without compromising their design decision of making armor be mostly cosmetic so you can wear whatever you want. The damage increase from each missing piece makes sense from a game design standpoint because that way they can have armor protect the player more, without increasing its stats and throwing off the delicate damage/resistance balancing act these games have. Yeah but the only armor that does any real damage reduction is heavy armor. All the light stuff has been mostly cosmetic in the past. If you want to wear any armor that really protects you there's a pretty serious vit tax. Even at 40 vit you can't wear any heavy armor and carry a greatsword and shield without fat rolling.
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Dec 26, 2016 03:26
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in pve armor doesent matter and in pvp armor only matters for poise usage.
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Dec 26, 2016 03:37
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honestly iudex is one of the harder bosses since I never figured out how to discern the pus of man attacks. thank God there's so few of those enemies in the game
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Dec 26, 2016 04:12
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Fat rolling is cool, now. Gamecominist is trying out greatshields with lorthic and cathedral knight cosplay builds.
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Dec 26, 2016 04:21
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YES I DID IT!! I followed you guys advice and slew that tough bastard, waking up the entire house in the process! 
Grouchio fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Dec 26, 2016 |
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Dec 26, 2016 04:59
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Also yeah pus attacks is some bullshit.
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Dec 26, 2016 05:00
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SHY NUDIST GRRL posted:Also yeah pus attacks is some bullshit. The rat dogs from DS2 have better hitboxes than them. It's insane.
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Dec 26, 2016 05:09
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That was the most satisfying boss battle end that I've ever had.
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Dec 26, 2016 05:23
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Grouchio posted:That was the most satisfying boss battle end that I've ever had. The next few bosses should be fairly straightforward but I eagerly await your reaction to Abyss Watchers or better yet THE CHAMP. Please keep us posted. Iretep posted:in pve armor doesent matter and in pvp armor only matters for poise usage. In PvE nothing matters since NG+7 SL1 Barehanded No Death runs are completely possible. PvE is about doing what you find fun and in that respect heavy armor can make a significant difference. The difference in damage taken between my heavily armored paladin-style character and even a medium armored character in NG+4 and on is significant and facetanking hits and then using healing miracles (which are much more efficient than Estus) to sustain through the level is a legitimate and fun strategy that doesn't work without heavy armor. In PvP it's a lot more complicated since there are so many variables outside of your control. Heavy armor gives noticeable increases in EHP but depending on your opponents setup that might mean you take two more hits to kill (really good) or you die on the fifth hit regardless just with less overkill (useless unless you have some kind of healing available). For that reason it's pretty good in the types of PvP where Estus is available and Miracles are easily used and mostly useless in duels which is apparently what people mean 99% of the time when they say "PvP". A big thing that people don't pay much attention to is how Vit significantly increases Physical Defense and heavy armor increases Physical Absorption. When you stack Vit in order to wear heavy armor, you are increasing both your flat physical mitigation and your percentage mitigation. When you take those two things together it really starts to add up. Because of how they work together, you get a situation where the more you get, the more valuable it becomes. However, in order to get enough Vit that it really starts making a difference (40+ to pull a number out of my rear end), you are are sacrificing so many other stats that it's not really viable at SL 120. Just getting more Vig will give you way better returns on investment. That's why heavy armor builds are really relegated to high Soul Levels where you can cap Vig and End, get 40+ Vit, and still have the stats left over to actually do damage. You could do it at lower SL's, but you'd be sacrificing so much damage that you would probably still be at a deficit vs a regular "meta" build. Thinking about it a bit more, you probably could find a bit of success with a heavy armor dueling build. It would have to be something that gives you very good damage from Str (which gives you the most Phys Def of the damage stats) and wasn't too heavy, so like the Millwood Battle Axe say. Then you'd use the Ethereal Oak Shield, Sun Princess Ring, Ring of Steel Protection, Life Ring+3, and Lloyd's Shield Ring (or you could be advanced and ring-swap Sun Princess and Lloyd's Shield, giving you an extra ring slot). Couple that with the heaviest armor you could wear and that would probably work pretty well, you'd have 30-40 more Defense and 20%+ more Absorption than a "regular" build (not counting Lloyd's Shield) which should mean that your slightly lower damage is more than made up for by your way higher EHP. The biggest thing holding you back at that point would be weapon movesets.
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Dec 26, 2016 08:13
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In lords of the fallen heavy armour gets so heavy that it's entirely possible to 1:1 trade hits with mid game bosses and come out on top, that was a nice change of pace coming straight from darklurker and ancient dragon.
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Dec 26, 2016 15:35
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AttackBacon posted:stuff As far as im aware defence still sucks compared to just getting more damage. Defence is good early on but since you can get so much damage and the gains from vit are so small compared to it even at high level, its not a reason you go for high vit. You go for high vit so you can trade hits while poising through your dumb opponents attempts to damage race you. In pve damage boosts are even worse later on so half the time your enemies will do so much damage that your puny defence will only prevent you from dying from 3 hits instead of 4. It helps some but its not a big advantage. Also yes, str/vit builds work just fine and probably fit into a 120 or at least 135 level range just fine. Though i think someone suggested the ideal poise build is 40 int and enough vit for full havel/moonlight greatsword. Though he could have been joking.
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Dec 26, 2016 16:16
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So I beat the game months ago and am wondering if dlc good?
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Dec 26, 2016 16:24
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It adds interesting weapons and an arena for quick duels, chaotic brawls, and team fights. The actual area itself is okay.
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Dec 26, 2016 16:27
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So after playing up to Lothric Castle with an Uchigatana, I am getting bored with it. I was reading that the Lothric Knight sword has a cool move set so I was going to check that out. I am building quality and am 30/30ish at this point. Am I going to want to make it refined or leave it just normal?
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Dec 26, 2016 16:41
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There isnt any weapons that are better uninfused that can be
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Dec 26, 2016 17:48
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I'm pretty sure at least Black Blade is better +10 uninfused than refined, with a 40/40 build
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Dec 26, 2016 18:26
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Iretep posted:As far as im aware defence still sucks compared to just getting more damage. So yes and no. Damage scales harder than defense does but defense scales longer. Once you've capped your damage stats the returns get miniscule but Vit never caps and Defense, HP, and Absorption are multiplicative. Outside of very specific situations and setups (hyper mode etc) DS doesn't have multiplicative damage scaling between multiple stats like that. And yes, the Def returns from Vit alone aren't huge, but the point is when they get combined with the increase in Absorption they start mattering. I'm not a hard math guy but the difference between 120 Def and 20% Abs and 170 Def and 40% Abs is way, way more than that simple 50 Def would suggest. Look at your own example, three hits vs four is a huge increase in your survivability (in a vacuum, that specific example doesn't matter as much because of two hit combos). The real benefit comes when it's coupled with some form of healing though, which is why I think tank builds only work with Regen or in PvP that allows for healing. You also need to consider combo breakpoints, three hits to four doesn't matter that much because it's still just two R1 combos, but four hits to five means they can't kill you in two combos, now it takes three. This all really comes into play at higher SL's, the more time I spend at higher SL's the more I think the 120 meta is one of the main things holding back PvP in DS3. AttackBacon fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Dec 26, 2016 |
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Dec 26, 2016 18:42
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You already can make a perfectly viable poise build at the 120-135 range so its not really the 120 SL holding them back. Keep in mind that raising the meta to 150 or something just means the quality builds will add weapon buffs making the whole vit upgrading pointless since the weapon buff damage will out damage any defence you gained from the vit levels. Basically vit builds will die faster at higher SL than they would at 120 SL.
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Dec 26, 2016 18:59
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Double Bill posted:I'm pretty sure at least Black Blade is better +10 uninfused than refined, with a 40/40 build One handed, yes. For two handed, refined has a slightly higher AR. I've been using Black Blade a lot recently and it's really fun. You get to use a high damaging katana without feeling like too much of a scumbag. crimedog fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Dec 26, 2016 |
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Dec 26, 2016 19:29
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Iretep posted:You already can make a perfectly viable poise build at the 120-135 range so its not really the 120 SL holding them back. Keep in mind that raising the meta to 150 or something just means the quality builds will add weapon buffs making the whole vit upgrading pointless since the weapon buff damage will out damage any defence you gained from the vit levels. Basically vit builds will die faster at higher SL than they would at 120 SL. This is the standard response and...It's just not true in my experience. First of all, I'm not talking about a poise build. I'm talking about a tank build focused on superior EHP and winning trades that way (with or without poise). Trading doesn't necessarily require poise, it's just often easier to win trades with poise because you get two hits to their one. But things like thrust damage, fast attacks that interrupt before poise frames start, or just massively strong attacks can all be valid forms of trading as well. I've done a lot of SL 150+ PvP at this point and a quality build just adding the stats for something like DMB is going to lose to a properly optimized build every time given equal player skill. You can't afford a full power DMB so you are getting like a 30 Fth one at most and that's not significantly better than just using a Pale Pine Resin. Someone who used those extra points on capping Vig and End is going to do a lot better. On top of that they have to cast the buff, do damage while it's active, and avoid Duel Charms. None of which are particularly impossible but they aren't just free either. The point is that at higher SL's the trio of Vig/Vit/Abs becomes strong enough that it actually does begin to outscale. I'm not talking "haha your puny attacks do nothing" I'm talking "if we trade evenly or even slightly in your favor I still come out ahead". At SL 160ish the build I had that felt by far the strongest was my big tanky Str/Fth character who traded with a Leo Ring Warpick and had consistent healing with regen and heal miracles. That build works at 120 but it's much weaker since that multiplicative scaling of defenses hasn't really hit it's stride and you are spending so much on your damage stats.
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Dec 26, 2016 22:36
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I like the archaeological storytelling of Miyazaki's games. When Solaire tells you "time is distorted" he's not only justifying multiplayer and respawning and stuff, he's explaining that you'll encounter the whole history of the place you're in. Like in Dark Souls, you see the mythological origins of the world. There are sky patriarch gods, death gods, and witchcraft gods, and peasants and soldiers and untouchables and knights. You see society from top to bottom; Blighttown isn't just "poison world" it's built around the drainage system of the kingdom's sewers. You eventually break the boundaries of the semi-realistic world and go into the fortresses of heaven and hell and the land of the dead and the tree that holds up the universe, and you overthrow the gods and start the age of mankind. It's not real complex but it touches on primal human questions and paints a picture of a whole world. Same deal with Bloodborne, on a more limited scale-- you trace the history of this doomed, insane society back to their encounter with an alien divinity and the hollering fish man baby who died for their sins. It doesn't literally hang together that well, but you can piece the fragments you get into a coherent understanding of the world. I found this missing from DS 2, which i guess makes sense since Miyazaki didn't direct it. The poison queen, the lava king, the miles of horrible tombs under the castle etc. all have their own little history but they don't have much to do with each other, or the pirate ship, or the laser tag cave full of corpse monsters, or the dwarves. Ultimately all they have in common is this meta thing about how they all inhabit a world whose boundaries and divisions are defined by the video game Dark Souls. 3 is somewhat better about this. You see the fall of the human world you created in the first game. Some of it fits together super well for me: the ramparts full of distorted knights with snakes in their heads segues to the hillbilly commune where evangelists hunt people with dogs, and then you trace the evangelists back to their church and their morbid disneyland heaven where a giant stomach has been installed on the throne of god. You see the life cycle of the pilgrims as they turn from animal to vegetable, and the decadent royal family going crazy under a black sun. Some of the human lords reflect aspects of the player experience, like Abyss Watchers endlessly summoning and invading each other or Aldrich relentlessly consuming everything the world has to offer. A lot of it though, like Carthus and the demon world and the profaned whatever don't really fit in for me, though at least they have relationships to other characters and places. tldr I like it
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Dec 26, 2016 23:17
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Healing miracles work in duels. It's just tricky. Usually heal aid is what you can get away with. And it helps if you have something to scare them off so you can run and heal.
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Dec 26, 2016 23:23
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SHY NUDIST GRRL posted:Healing miracles work in duels. It's just tricky. Usually heal aid is what you can get away with. And it helps if you have something to scare them off so you can run and heal. Who is this in response to, because I don't think anyone was claiming otherwise? It's just not super reliable, good play can prevent you from ever getting one off (or at least cancel the healing out if you use Unfaltering Prayer). The only reliable way to heal in duels is to create space with a spell and/or cheesing the tower and then using (ideally) either Heal Aid or Med Heal, Heal Aid for speed and Med Heal for raw healing while still leaving you enough stamina to roll after. The usual combo is a faith build with Lightning Storm + Heal Aid to make space and hide the Heal Aid since the casting animations are so similar, or an int/fth hybrid with a fog spell of some kind to zone and hide the heal. It's just that a good player will just avoid or tank the zoning spell and prevent you from ever creating enough distance to get a heal off. Usually anyways, everyone makes mistakes and bad players abound in the Arena. Thinking about it more, I think that build diversity at SL 120 is very possible and I think that my saying it's "one of the main things holding PvP back" wasn't really correct, since the main things holding PvP back are netcode and P2P hosting as well as how obfuscated the mechanics of the game are. I do think however that a lot of complaints about "the meta" would be ameliorated at higher SL's and even that the devs expected the PvP meta to settle in at higher SL's. That second bit is based on the fact that SL 160-ish is when you start being able to reliably (ie: without sacrificing too much) hard cap Vig and End as well as where you tend to end up if you level "naturally" (which obviously has huge variance from person to person) all the way through NG+2, so you have the full suite of rings available. That seems like a more natural place for a developer to anticipate players stopping at, particularly since SL 120 is higher than you'd get in a "typical" NG run with no farming (which would seem to me the other natural stopping point). Builds would make a lot more sense around that level too, right now we have very arbitrary stopping points for Vig and End, which says to me it's not a level band the developers anticipated. That's all 100% my own conjecture of course with no real supporting evidence apart from the above speculation. AttackBacon fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Dec 27, 2016 |
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Dec 27, 2016 00:54
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swamp waste posted:I like the archaeological storytelling of Miyazaki's games. When Solaire tells you "time is distorted" he's not only justifying multiplayer and respawning and stuff, he's explaining that you'll encounter the whole history of the place you're in. I like DS3 because it's the first game in the series that has really shown us what "normal people" did during the undead cruse and beyond. I mean, they all went insane, started worshipping dark magic, and died. But it still shows you!
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Dec 27, 2016 02:11
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What do they do for food? Where are the farms, FromSoft?
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Dec 27, 2016 03:20
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New Concept Hole posted:What do they do for food? Where are the farms, FromSoft? Everyone just eats souls nowadays.
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Dec 27, 2016 03:23
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Maybe the swamp was actually a farm where they got fruit from the Basilisks.
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Dec 27, 2016 03:42
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They've got crabs, moss, and lumpy fruit. What else could you want?
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Dec 27, 2016 03:49
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Internet Kraken posted:They've got crabs, moss, and lumpy fruit. I could have done without knowing that.
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Dec 27, 2016 05:23
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Boy trying to platinum the game has really shown my weaknesses in PvP. Invading in the pontiff area is fun though. Lots of other spirits to make up for my suckage. I'm up to 21 tongues in just a few hours. I'll switch over to mounds after this. Then that just leaves blues 
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Dec 27, 2016 05:55
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Unless you're playing a fresh character around level 30 its faster to grind Silver Knights with high item find than try to make that stupid covenant work.
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Dec 27, 2016 05:57
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AttackBacon posted:Who is this in response to, because I don't think anyone was claiming otherwise? "pvp that allows for healing" implied to me that not having estus in duels meant healing wasn't a (real) option
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Dec 27, 2016 07:11
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Asehujiko posted:In lords of the fallen heavy armour gets so heavy that it's entirely possible to 1:1 trade hits with mid game bosses and come out on top, that was a nice change of pace coming straight from darklurker and ancient dragon. I know a greatshield tank isn't the same as just trading hits, but I do think you get the same feeling of being indestructible, and you retain at least some of the interesting timing and gameplay instead of just mashing your attacks and seeing who dies first. I'd go replay Skyrim for that kind of combat.
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Dec 27, 2016 14:23
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swamp waste posted:
I have to disagree - DS2 has the same sort of archaeological slow-building discovery, it just isn't about the world. DS2's focus is on the curse, and what it means to have the curse. The discoveries are more personal in nature both about you (why's that last giant so dang mad at me?!) and about the characters like Lucatiel. The world is less important for the places in it, and more about the people who inhabited it - the fallen kings and star-crossed lovers of Alken and Venn. I subscribe to the theory that the transitions between the lands don't really make sense because they're meant to imply a failed recollection. (This might be a hard sell for The Hated Elevator, but I think it's pretty intentional with say, the distance distortion looking back on Majula from Heide.) The places don't matter because it's intentional that they don't matter - so many kingdoms have risen and fallen that their names are irrelevant, only the curse is eternal. I like the theme they were going for, and I think it's a shame that it didn't lead to as great of a gameplay experience as DS1's world, because I feel like the backlash against it heavily discouraged them from trying something new.
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Dec 27, 2016 17:18
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Giant Isopod posted:I like the theme they were going for, and I think it's a shame that it didn't lead to as great of a gameplay experience as DS1's world, because I feel like the backlash against it heavily discouraged them from trying something new. but they followed it with bloodborne, which was very different and very successful really the big place ds2 failed as a game was tying iframes to a stat. I find it hard to go back to that game specifically because low agility is annoying to get used to again after playing the other games
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Dec 27, 2016 17:23
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^^^ Bloodborne was parallel development I think? e: I quoted myself somehow because I am a big dumb idiot
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Dec 27, 2016 17:31
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Since we're on the subject of lore, has there been any explanation on the differences/connections between the afflictions of the PCs between the three games? Hollows vs Undead vs Unkindled. Are they different words for the same thing in different ages? You're presumably a warped for of human, but you use different sources for status conditioning. By that, I mean dying causes you to go into a degraded status in DS1/2 and you use humanity to revert to normal while you start normal in 3 and use embers to power up. Could hollows from the first game use embers had they existed? The implication of the history provided in DS3 is that 5 cycles of linking the fire have occurred since DS1 (one for each lord), right? Did the physics of the universe change that much over those 5 cycles to alter how humans derive their power? Are Unkindled also descendants of the Furtive Pigmy?
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Dec 27, 2016 17:47
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Yeah ds2 has some tight theming. The undead curse in 1 and 2 has you hollow when you lose your drive. When the npcs in 1 succeed at their goal they have nothing else to push them on and hollow. In 2 there's soul memory pushing you to dump more souls in your stats and gear so you don't fall behind. I love how the mechanic dovetails with the lore, even if I don't like the mechanic.
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Dec 27, 2016 18:02
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AlternateNu posted:Since we're on the subject of lore, has there been any explanation on the differences/connections between the afflictions of the PCs between the three games? warning: not a lore wizard, but I like the games.  The Undead are humans that have somehow (implied by Aldia to be due to Gwyn's unnatural extension of the Age of Fire) had a curse placed on them. These Undead can never die, and are shuttled away from 'normal' folks, though some people believe that they're prophetically special. A Hollow's an Undead that's gone mad, lost their purpose in life. An Unkindled is an Undead who tried, but somehow failed, to link the fire, and was subsumed into Ash. When some Bell is rung, the Unkindled are awakened as a last-gasp effort to link the fire. Presumably, that being Ashen somehow distances you from being human: as such, Humanity is nothing more than Human Dregs to you, and using Embers allows you to emulate your moment of glory, when you nearly linked the Fire. Hollows can't use Ember any more than they could use Humanity: they're just shells of what they used to be. With humans as descendants of the Pygmy, and Unkindled being weird humans, I'd say yes.
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Dec 27, 2016 19:50
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