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The Souls games (and Bloodborne) really aren't that difficult. What they do is reward observation, exploration, and experimentation, without directly telling the player what to do. You have to, you know, read environmental clues and go look for yourself, find stuff out. That's fun! Round when Demon's Souls and the first Dark Souls game came out, this was in direct contrast to the prevailing design philosophy in the industry, where most popular games did a lot of 'handholding', telling them where to go and what buttons to press, etc, so the games have this reputation of being super punishing and difficult, when all they really present you with is a lack of overt signposting. So a new player hears Dark Souls is super difficult, but without context. They run smack bang into the spooky scary skeleton gangbang graveyard, and assume this is the way it's meant to be, because of course, Dark Souls is hard. The intended effect on the player is to encourage them to turn around and try looking elsewhere, but via environment rather than a big flashing objective arrow, while also leaving the difficult route open for sequence breaking tricks or masochists. There's also the delicious feeling when you come back there in the late game and show the skelebois what for.
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Nov 16, 2019 12:32
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Mind you, "Prepare to Die" still isn't actually a misleading tagline. You will, in fact, die a lot. I just doesn't mean much because you have an infinite number of tries at everything. At this point, I can basically do a no-death run of the game up to the first Seath fight, but that doesn't mean it wasn't still a decent struggle to get there.
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Nov 16, 2019 12:35
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Cardiovorax posted:Mind you, "Prepare to Die" still isn't actually a misleading tagline. You will, in fact, die a lot. I just doesn't mean much because you have an infinite number of tries at everything. I loving love that sort of thing. Soft buffers to help prop struggling players along rather than 120% brick wall all the time. Players will also realize their own skill growth and feel all the swearing and ball busting pain previously was worth it more easily, if you have a solid baseline to feel like a vengeful god on replays instead of "Hold on, I need to work past my broken sword and rusty Kalashikov to the legitimate stuff first" Part of why one of the very first things you unlock in Sekiro is telling enemy thrust attacks to gently caress right off blew my goddamned mind.
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Nov 16, 2019 12:42
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Yeah, Dark Souls 1 is legit one of the best-designed I've ever played in any sense that you care to mention, from level layout to difficulty curve to rate of progress. It just does everything right in a way that no matter what you do, if you go into it without preconceptions the way you eventually take through the game will feel entirely organic and like everything you did was your own idea even as subtly pushes you towards your next goal. Dark Souls 1 is why people say that you only get to play a Dark Souls for the first time once, so enjoy the experience while you can.
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Nov 16, 2019 13:30
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It's me, I'm the guy who hates the boss fights in souls games for being unfun roadblocks.
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Nov 16, 2019 14:08
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Skyscraper posted:Those repairs were like 80% of my take of the 1-2 skeletons that I was able to kill before getting beaten and running away, which was my optimal grind strategy. ??? Actually now that I think about it... How were you repairing at all? You literally can't until you buy the repairbox from a merchant at the undead burg anyway, or from the first blacksmith you meet, who is ALSO past the undead burg.
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Nov 16, 2019 14:14
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People say the Souls games got harder, and maybe they did, but there's nothing in ringed city as demoralizing as the curse status effect
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Nov 16, 2019 16:45
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Souls games have too many things that try to kill you. It annoys me. Someone should make a Souls game where maybe only sixteen things try to kill you in an otherwise desolate and beautiful world.
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Nov 16, 2019 17:01
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The Vosgian Beast posted:People say the Souls games got harder, and maybe they did, but there's nothing in ringed city as demoralizing as the curse status effect For anyone who is about to say that they did something similar with Embers: they actually didn't. At 50 vigor, you have similar HP in Dark Souls 3 without Ember as you did in Dark Souls 2 after using a Human Effigy at the same stat level. It is, in fact, even a little bit more after Ember than you had in Dark Souls 1 as base HP at 50 Vitality. Cardiovorax fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Nov 16, 2019 |
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Nov 16, 2019 17:06
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You've got people saying this poo poo is mad easy on one hand and downright impossible on the other. All I know is that figuring out how to beat encounters and bosses is fun and From software does a good job at that sort of thing. I just beat Champ Gundyr for the first time in 3 years and that sort of boss is my loving jam. Games need more gundyrs, Maria's and Orphans. Is good.
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Nov 17, 2019 18:27
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RightClickSaveAs posted:It's an old game at this point but Dark Fall: Lost Souls was one of the last games I found myself actually keeping notes for. It's kind of a ghost story detective game, although fairly light on the horror. e: jesus it also came out in 2002 
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Nov 17, 2019 18:46
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The true horror is that everyone will tell you their dark souls opinion
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Nov 17, 2019 19:04
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My Dark Souls opinion is that each of the games should've had their own variant of world tendency.
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Nov 17, 2019 19:34
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Glagha posted:??? Actually now that I think about it... How were you repairing at all? You literally can't until you buy the repairbox from a merchant at the undead burg anyway, or from the first blacksmith you meet, who is ALSO past the undead burg. There's a blacksmith right at the start of the game, chilling on a ledge in New Londo that's almost impossible for a new player to find. Which is my way of saying that the Souls games (at least the first one) aren't hard - they're obtuse. They don't tell the player poo poo. I know multiple people who beat the first one and had no idea you could kindle the bonfires to get 2x or 4x the number of healing items when you rest at them - because the game is loving awful at communicating even the most basic gameplay mechanics to the player.
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Nov 17, 2019 19:36
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Popular Human posted:There's a blacksmith right at the start of the game, chilling on a ledge in New Londo that's almost impossible for a new player to find. Amen. I feel like I'd have more respect for them if the menus didn't overload you with meaningless info at the start of the game while also not clarifying certain basic things. I haven't been motivated to get far in a souls game because screwing up means slowly clunking your way back to wherever you are from the last of the sparse checkpoints. By contrast I love rain world because your deaths are quick but painless and there's very little punishment for snooping around and expending lives exploring the map.
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Nov 17, 2019 22:02
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Been playing 'Bendy and the Ink Machine' after being recommended it by a friend. How did I miss this? Imagine Soma but set in 1930 Disney Steamboat Willie cartoon. Its not a long game, and its rather easy, but it has a great atmosphere about it. Am surprised Disney hasn't tried to shut them down.
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Nov 17, 2019 22:16
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happyhippy posted:Been playing 'Bendy and the Ink Machine' after being recommended it by a friend. Presumably you don't go down toy aisles often? poo poo was big enough it has merch alongside FNAF and Hello Neighbor
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Nov 17, 2019 22:27
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Len posted:Presumably you don't go down toy aisles often? poo poo was big enough it has merch alongside FNAF and Hello Neighbor Yeah. My not into horror kid at all has heard of it and recognizes it, because he hangs out with other 15 and 16 year old boys at school.
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Nov 17, 2019 22:36
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Len posted:Presumably you don't go down toy aisles often? poo poo was big enough it has merch alongside FNAF and Hello Neighbor Really? WoW. No I don't and not big into buying toy versions of things. Only two 'toys' I have in a Alien posable and Hellraiser cube. I thought the Bendy mascot looked familiar, reminded me of some japanese anime robot kid from the 70s (forget the name)
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Nov 17, 2019 23:04
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happyhippy posted:Really? WoW. Before the 70s (50s-60s for the original run), or after (80s for the second series), but you're probably thinking of Astro Boy. 
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Nov 17, 2019 23:11
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youcallthatatwist posted:Amen. I feel like I'd have more respect for them if the menus didn't overload you with meaningless info at the start of the game while also not clarifying certain basic things. weird I played through all of the souls games multiple times but I had to give up on rain world because death was too punishing. did I miss something
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Nov 18, 2019 01:11
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whaley posted:weird I played through all of the souls games multiple times but I had to give up on rain world because death was too punishing. did I miss something Same
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Nov 18, 2019 01:43
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whaley posted:weird I played through all of the souls games multiple times but I had to give up on rain world because death was too punishing. did I miss something Did you play it at release? An early patch made a whole lot of QoL improvements, including making your map persistent after death and also making swimming not completely awful. There's a beforeiplay site here with some non-spoilery tips. Keep in mind that you can't play it like a soulslike - unless you're experienced, engaging in combat at all will usually leave you worse off. Slugcat starts the game with basically all of the abilities it'll ever have, so your only progression is from understanding how you work and how the world works. Be very cautious and sneaky, and focus on exploring and observing creatures instead of trying to rush from level to level. There's no shame in spending a few cycles just gathering food and making it back to shelter. Some other scattershot advice: your karma meter doesn't actually matter most of the time - the only thing it affects is passage between areas, in which case there's usually a shelter and food nearby to help you rest. The golden flower is a Souls mechanic - it preserves your level when you die, and you can find another one growing at your bloodstain (it has a special mark on your map) provided you don't die again on the way. If you're lost, follow the yellow guide's instructions, because it'll take you through the game's recommended path. Make sure to always keep an eye on the clock in the bottom-left corner of the map to know when you should head to bed. The scavengers can be unpredictable dicks but will generally let you pass if you crouch on the ground, drop any weapons you have, and refrain from being aggressive. You can also befriend them by giving them stuff. Oh and also pole mimics won't show up as poles on your map, if you want a way to check for them. youcallthatatwist fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Nov 18, 2019 |
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Nov 18, 2019 02:34
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happyhippy posted:Really? WoW.
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Nov 18, 2019 18:53
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Episode 1 or 2 was decent but then the game just completely turned into milking it's spotlight, there's literally an in-game old abandoned merch store, with coincidentally clean and visible merch, which is coincidentally real merch.
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Nov 18, 2019 19:34
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Bendy chased the FNAF wagon and made it really blatant all they cared about was merch sales and doing the bare minimum for Deepest Lore and streamer exposure (to sell merch)
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Nov 18, 2019 20:08
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We're thankfully getting out of the ~*DEEP LORE*~ era a bit more now, FNAF is dormant, Hello Neighbor finally dropped off hard as it deserved, Bendy is like still there but it's just a marketing vehicle.
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Nov 18, 2019 20:22
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So I played Man of Medan with some friends recently and it was... neat. Kinda cool, as a multiplayer horror experience. Kinda like watching a shlocky horror movie together with buttons. Making fun of each other when we gently caress up, and occasionally jumping at a jumpscare or something. It was a good time but... it was also kind of strange because (I'm gonna spoiler this because it involves story branching stuff both in the very early game and also at the very very end) Conrad seemed to be basically set up to get removed from the story like, immediately after his first gameplay sequence practically no matter what you do. If stuff I looked up after our playthrough is correct it seems like he can get on the boat with everyone else, but it seems like there's just a ton of ways for him to die very early on and even though he didn't die, his player got him to steal the pirates' boat and run away for help and... he's just loving gone for the entire rest of the game and she doesn't get to play anymore. Like, we went in with the possibility that someone might die and be eliminated but it really seemed like whoever gets Conrad is kind of hosed when it comes to the playing games with your friends. Especially because when we got to the very end of the game, it seems like the only sequence of events that result in him re-entering the story in any way require you to fail to save the distributor cap and strand the party on the boat. Because otherwise then they all leave and he comes back to find them and for some reason goes onto the boat? Alone? Without the coast guard who apparently brought him there???? I dunno his whole role in the story was very strange and while his player had a fun time it seemed really lovely to basically make one player not... get to play in like 75% of the ways his story can play out. Edit: No spoiler tl;dr: it seems like the amount of actual gameplay there is for each character in a game that seems to want you to try to play with a bunch of friends playing all the characters is wildly different even accounting for the possibility that someone might die/not die. Glagha fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Nov 18, 2019 |
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Nov 18, 2019 23:29
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Thank you Zombi, I never knew I needed a loving insipid arena section in my tense zombie survival game.
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Nov 19, 2019 21:54
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Disposable Scud posted:Thank you Zombi, I never knew I needed a loving insipid arena section in my tense zombie survival game. I will never get tired of open world games randomly throwing in at least one mandatory arena level as their way of introducing you to the arena. And by "never get tired of" I mean "despise."
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Nov 19, 2019 22:13
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I run an indie horror game curator page and I recently got a game through curator connect called Last Neighbor and it's just the worst parts of modern streamer horror. It's just another FNAF clone but instead of animatronics, the antagonist is a shirtless black man with a knife. I made it 30 minutes before I had to close it and never consider playing it again.
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Nov 25, 2019 11:04
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Untrustable posted:I run an indie horror game curator page and I recently got a game through curator connect called Last Neighbor and it's just the worst parts of modern streamer horror. It's just another FNAF clone but instead of animatronics, the antagonist is a shirtless black man with a knife. I made it 30 minutes before I had to close it and never consider playing it again. What page is that?
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Nov 25, 2019 13:18
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Untrustable posted:I run an indie horror game curator page and I recently got a game through curator connect called Last Neighbor and it's just the worst parts of modern streamer horror. It's just another FNAF clone but instead of animatronics, the antagonist is a shirtless black man with a knife. I made it 30 minutes before I had to close it and never consider playing it again. Wow, those screenshots are really something.
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Nov 25, 2019 17:39
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Three positive reviews, all three received the game for free. How about that.
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Nov 25, 2019 18:02
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exquisite tea posted:Souls games have too many things that try to kill you. It annoys me. Someone should make a Souls game where maybe only sixteen things try to kill you in an otherwise desolate and beautiful world. Demon's Souls does indeed fuckin' rule.
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Nov 25, 2019 18:12
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Morpheus posted:Three positive reviews, all three received the game for free. How about that. Oh I'm one of the positive reviews. It's a game for a certain kind of horror fan. People that liked FNAF or Emily Wants to Play will love the "follow these rules or get jumpscared" gameplay. It's the kind of horror I hate, but it's competent. It's made for the PewDiePies and Markipliers of the world.
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Nov 26, 2019 07:37
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You know what you're totally right. Those kinda of games tend to be better for streamers because I can imagine it's more fun watching someone keep up with all the rules. And great when they fail. Actually playing it yourself would be tedious for most people.
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Nov 26, 2019 16:48
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Yeah, from the looks of it, its a fairly well made stream game, even if it looks loving ridiculous.
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Nov 26, 2019 16:50
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I think my only experience with a Dark Souls game was playing Bloodborne, getting up to the Blood Starved Beast, using all of my items to get him to a sliver of health in a pretty epic fight, then getting OHKOed by his head bite. After which I realized I would have to grind for hours just to get enough items to make another effort at that and was like, nah
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Nov 26, 2019 17:15
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If you're ever "grinding for hours" to get items to beat a boss you are doing something desperately, desperately wrong.
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Nov 26, 2019 17:42
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