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I would say it is different enough, it's also a world a lot less dead than any of the Souls games. The main Souls themes of inescapable time and decay and the fires going out isn't really there, outside of things aging and things changing, as they do, really, in Dark Souls the end of an era, the current era, is the end of the world, in ER it is extremely clear that it is not the case.
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Jul 30, 2022 01:35
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No you see it's about gods struggling for power in the rebirth of tragic world forsaken by death
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Jul 30, 2022 01:36
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I right it was about riding a sweet horse around to find turtles to pet and put hats on
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Jul 30, 2022 02:03
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CommonShore posted:No you see it's about
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Jul 30, 2022 02:30
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Melth posted:Honestly though, that's one of the reasons I don't feel that interested in Elden Ring. When I heard that they had an outside writer helping with their lore (not an author whose work I liked very much, but I did think his lore and history was his strong suit), I was quite interested to see how some of the good elements of Dark Souls would be without some of the things I'd gotten tired of. But it sounds to me, at least from what I've superficially heard about the game, that it would be retreading a lot of the same themes. I mean that in quite an abstract way. It gives the themes a bit more of a nuanced treatment than Dark Souls does. Characters and organisations have motivations beyond order/hierarchy and chaos/horizontality, there' more consideration to the cycle of birth and death beyond, etc. It's like they've taken the Dark Souls themes and slotted them within a broader pantheon/world. Worth playing, anyway.
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Jul 30, 2022 02:55
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Slaan posted:I right it was about riding a sweet horse around to find dogs to pet and put hats on fixed.
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Jul 30, 2022 10:56
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SirSamVimes posted:fixed. Speaking of things which are fixed, I've finally overcome the series of recording software problems which were blocking me from making the next video. I've got it scheduled for next Sunday. I've also started making a list of Dark Souls mechanics to talk about in more detail since this game is full of very obscure stuff, particularly in the all-important but recondite combat system. If anyone has suggestions for mechanics or lore things to talk about in future videos, I'll add them to the list of topics to consider.
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Aug 28, 2022 06:35
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Oh I'm glad this hasn't been abandoned!
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Aug 28, 2022 08:05
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bike tory posted:Oh I'm glad this hasn't been abandoned!
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Aug 28, 2022 08:24
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bike tory posted:Oh I'm glad this hasn't been abandoned! No way! This is one of my favorite games and I intend to complete this run fully. It will take a while of course, both since it's a big game and because each of these episodes takes me something like 12-20 hours of work, but I'll get it done.
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Aug 28, 2022 18:11
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bike tory posted:Oh I'm glad this hasn't been abandoned! Also with the servers back I have resumed my DS3 run and I am very much out of practice.
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Aug 28, 2022 19:00
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Zedd posted:Not an emptyquote. It's definitely exciting news that that server is back. Maybe I'll do some pvp later. I was pretty good at that. Though being invaded in these early zones while fighting NG+6 enemies would be pretty hopeless
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Aug 29, 2022 03:00
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Ep 3: Undead Burg On to the first main zone, and the first encounter with gravelord enemies!
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Sep 4, 2022 19:03
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Were the two gravelord enemies from this video representative of how they're usually used? I was expecting them to shake things up more than just be especially high-stat faces in the crowd.
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Sep 4, 2022 22:26
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Discendo Vox posted:Were the two gravelord enemies from this video representative of how they're usually used? I was expecting them to shake things up more than just be especially high-stat faces in the crowd. No, these ones are unusually straightforward. Posted in plain sight in the middle of a crowd. The next one is posed hidden around a corner cleverly where he'll tend to get you from behind as you move in to engage the enemies in plain sight. In Sen's fortress, they're set up where they can shoot you with ranged attacks in all the spots which are usually safe from the existing ranged enemies, and so on.
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Sep 4, 2022 22:49
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You'll be happy to know that Elden Ring has an actual jump button, you'll be dismayed to know that platforming is still a thing, although not that prominent. From learns little by little. When it comes to undead rats and dogs, I always assumed that it came from them eating corpses, since they eat humanities as well, maybe those humanities do things to them. I note you share my sentiment regarding the level design, I'm pretty sure I could climb to that ladder in real life and that it would be less risky than taking on a half dozen undead soldiers. E: Regarding the zweihander and similar weapons, I tend to not use them because of how goofy they look both as they are and as they are used, I'll take a giant demon swinging a tree sized axe around, but it just looks goofy when I have to pretend that my character can use something effectively as a melee weapon and also has to rest it on their shoulder due to the weight. SIGSEGV fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Sep 5, 2022 |
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Sep 5, 2022 01:36
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SIGSEGV posted:You'll be happy to know that Elden Ring has an actual jump button, you'll be dismayed to know that platforming is still a thing, although not that prominent. From learns little by little. Having an actual jump button sounds like a wonderful improvement. Even in games where jumping isn't very useful, I really just like having a button for it. And in Dark Souls 1 at least there were multiple areas where you could get irreparably stuck in a tiny 1 inch deep hole and be forced to use a Homeward bone or even suicide with the Darksign. Being able to jump out sounds much better. I agree with the underlying idea that the dogs and rats have humanities because of eating corpses. However, zombie dragons don't drop humanity and there's no sign of them eating corpses. Also, loads of creatures eats humans and don't become undead. And then of course Dark Souls 2 has humanity (one of the most fundamental components of the world) inexplicably stop existing and dark souls 3 had to sneak it back in, but both games still had undead animals and whatnot. Honestly, I just don't think the writers/designers thought it through. I agree with you about the Zweihander and other huge weapons. I'm ok with the Zweihander itself. If that was the absolute biggest weapon, I would accept it. But that's the smallest of a category of weapon, and then 'greathammers' and 'greataxes' are often even bigger and sillier. It's cartoony and it feels out of place in a setting which is often fairly gritty and grounded. It's also weird because when, say, the Asylum Demon has its hammer, the thing is the size of a car. When you get the hammer it has inexplicably shrunk by 75% and is now the size of a person. But that's still so big as to look ridiculous. Why would they make weapons change size, but not change size enough to look reasonable?
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Sep 5, 2022 20:17
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Melth posted:. Because big weapons are cool and there is quite a bit of Berserk in the Dark Souls family tree.
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Sep 5, 2022 20:28
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Yeah, I know why it's there, but I've grown out of pretending I liked it over a decade ago, I read it because I was told it was good and in the end, I didn't find it so. And I've always had a dislike of surfboard weapons.
SIGSEGV fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Sep 6, 2022 |
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Sep 5, 2022 20:31
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Well there is plenty of smaller weapons for you, and stupidly large weapons for fun-havers.
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Sep 5, 2022 23:36
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I'm playing Dark Souls 1 for the first time now that Elden Ring's helped get the genre more, and I'm loving daggers the most of the weapons so far. Being nimble and hacking away at these giant demons just feels more fun to me than hauling around a slab of metal and flattening things, though I see the appeal. The universal parry seems kind of busted though, I get why they removed that.
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Sep 6, 2022 05:58
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Big weapons in this game are great in a way that I don't think they've managed to repeat really. From DS2 onwards I feel that you benefit more from the mobility of smaller, fast-hitting weapons.
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Sep 6, 2022 10:37
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bike tory posted:Big weapons in this game are great in a way that I don't think they've managed to repeat really. From DS2 onwards I feel that you benefit more from the mobility of smaller, fast-hitting weapons. In 2, you can pancake problem enemies with big weapons, and everything and their mother being weak to strike damage means that clubs deal ridiculous damage. In 3, it depends on the weapon (there's some stinkers in the big club department), but e.g. making Vordt's weapon asap can easily carry you through the whole game. Because poise activates only during hyperarmor attacks, which these weapons have, you can actually trade with them, giving you a playstyle similar to DS1. In ER, you can powerstance without having to exceed the weapons' requirements by 1.5, so two big club = only a weight problem, and the speed issue can easily be handled by only making jump attacks, which have ridiculous poise break anyway, so pairing that with two heavy hitters means you'll keep staggering enemies. It's not only valid, many claim it's the easiest way to just sleepwalk through the game, because you can practically stunlock bosses. Hell, even in Bloodborne, there's plenty of Kirkhammer fans (not me), and nobody is going to argue that the Whirligig doesn't feel awesome. I have also had excellent success with the Bloodletter, another bigass club.
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Sep 6, 2022 11:33
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Yeah the only fromsoft game where I felt encouraged to turn away from the gospel of unga bunga is DS3, just didn't feel as satisfying there to me.
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Sep 6, 2022 11:38
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Jumping R2s in general are amazing with light weapons as well, you just have to know when to backstep or roll backwards.
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Sep 6, 2022 14:34
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I'm not saying that big weapons weren't viable in future games, my ethos for first playthroughs in From games is always to find the biggest weapon possible. Powerstancing giant swords in ER was wonderful. Just making the point that they're outclassed by smaller, faster weapons, ds1 is the only game where it doesn't really feel that way, possibly DS2. All the most powerful melee builds in DS3, Bloodborne and ER are fast hitting weapons like the twinblades, rakuyo or twinblades/curved swords respectively.
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Sep 6, 2022 23:27
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SirSamVimes posted:Well there is plenty of smaller weapons for you, and stupidly large weapons for fun-havers. Eugh, fun-having degenerates are everywhere these days! Blue Labrador posted:I'm playing Dark Souls 1 for the first time now that Elden Ring's helped get the genre more, and I'm loving daggers the most of the weapons so far. Being nimble and hacking away at these giant demons just feels more fun to me than hauling around a slab of metal and flattening things, though I see the appeal. Daggers are definitely something I can enjoy vs bosses. I find that I don't like using them as a main weapon against normal enemies though, since the terrible reach means I have to either do nothing but backstabs and ripostes or just crowd in absurdly close and stop paying attention to spacing. Either way, it seems less interesting and less versatile. Simply Simon posted:In DS2, 3 and Elden Ring, going big is an excellent playstyle. In DS2 though, the lock-on system was godawful with big weapons and would sometimes glitch and make you do a 180 to swing in the exact wrong direction. The first time I beat the game was with a giant club though (because the busted leveling system meant I had infinity stats by the end so weight and Str requirements stopped mattering) and I'll agree it was viable. I have less experience with DS3, but to my mind, trading hits was very much a DS3 thing and the complete opposite of DS1. Since you probably know more about DS3's normal playstyles though, how would you describe the difference?
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Sep 7, 2022 05:37
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DS3 PVP with big weapons is often about trading hits but bosses were very much about positioning and cycles of attack and defend (dodge/block) windows. Like think the design ethos behind Artorias in DS1, almost every boss in DS3 is done similarly. This isn't a critique by any means, I really like that style of boss. But it certainly means that big slow weapons are a bit harder to use because longer windups/swings means the timing is tighter to do damage without taking damage.
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Sep 7, 2022 05:58
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bike tory posted:I'm not saying that big weapons weren't viable in future games, my ethos for first playthroughs in From games is always to find the biggest weapon possible. Powerstancing giant swords in ER was wonderful. Ultimately, this discussion really depends on what you think "outclassing" means. Pure DPS? Then yeah, the faster weapons might be better. Easy of play? I give the nod to the big one. Melth posted:In DS2 though, the lock-on system was godawful with big weapons and would sometimes glitch and make you do a 180 to swing in the exact wrong direction. The first time I beat the game was with a giant club though (because the busted leveling system meant I had infinity stats by the end so weight and Str requirements stopped mattering) and I'll agree it was viable. 2) it's not so much that you want to trade hits, it's that the weapon allows you to. It's a mistake protection. If you misjudge how fast the enemy is going to swing, it'll stagger you out of the animation with a light weapon. With a heavy one (and enough poise on the armor), you take the damage but continue the swing, possibly staggering the enemy, giving you a free second hit, and then they're dead. In the light weapon example, they might get a second hit to stunlock you into a combo. Again, if you do not take that first hit, instead get behind them and unleash a combo, light weapon wins on DPS. Heavy weapon wins in the "gently caress it" department, it's easier to use.
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Sep 7, 2022 07:58
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About the scaffolding, Illusory Walls Out of Bounds Exploration video has some interesting speculation on that. Also contains some even more fascinating cut-content analysis about the early layout of Undead Burg: Apparently the original entrance lead to the lower Burg, right by the Capra Demon arena. Hopefully without the Capra Demon.
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Sep 11, 2022 18:13
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Carpator Diei posted:About the scaffolding, Illusory Walls Out of Bounds Exploration video has some interesting speculation on that. Also contains some even more fascinating cut-content analysis about the early layout of Undead Burg: Apparently the original entrance lead to the lower Burg, right by the Capra Demon arena. Hopefully without the Capra Demon. Interesting! I'd seen some of that material when using map-viewing tools and other modding stuff. I was actually going to talk about one of those cut sections in my next video.
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Sep 14, 2022 08:04
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I assume the hollows in the asylum have weapons because they were the guards.
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Sep 22, 2022 11:44
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I assumed that the hollows have weapons for the same reason that Sir Whatshisface dropped a corpse into your cell — gameplay takes precedent over lore, and most (all?) of the hollows you’ll be fighting have weapons, so it makes sense for the tutorial ones to also be armed. Likewise, items are found on corpses, so there needs to be a corpse to loot to show you how it works. Also: this LP is what got me off my rear end to finally start playing this game. I had assumed that the gameplay would be more like the NG+6 difficulty, so I’ve been very glad to see that it’s not that hard normally. 
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Sep 22, 2022 13:19
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The big secret of From games is that they aren't actually that hard, they just tend to beat your face in when you disrespect threats and / or mess up, if you don't do that, have some inkling of the threats and prepare appropriately you can breeze through them, made sweeter by the pain of the first playthroughs.
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Sep 22, 2022 13:27
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There's that, and also add with it fact that the first Dark Souls is probably the easiest of the bunch. It's a lot slower paced, the hits are frequently heavily telegraphed, parrying is reactionary, and the level and damage scaling are at a decent balance overall. It doesn't even have that many gotchas and mean tricks compared to the following games, it just focuses on the idea that every section of an area is a localized challenge you have to figure out how to deal with, and you have to figure that out yourself. Not to say that the game doesn't retain some difficulty though, even if a lot of the initial culture shock between this and Demon's Souls was due to the games in the big publisher space having trended way low in terms of difficulty and frequently opting to handhold players through every aspect of the game and mechanics.
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Sep 22, 2022 15:17
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SIGSEGV posted:The big secret of From games is that they aren't actually that hard, they just tend to beat your face in when you disrespect threats and / or mess up, if you don't do that, have some inkling of the threats and prepare appropriately you can breeze through them, made sweeter by the pain of the first playthroughs. On the one hand, I think "game that beats your face in if you disrespect threats or mess up" could rightly be considered a hard game. On the other though yeah, most of the difficulty comes from not knowing whats coming. Knowing where the enemies are, what kinds of threats they pose, how to handle them etc makes the game much easier. I think part of the reason there's debate about whether the games are hard or people just need to git gud or whatever is just failing to recognise that the death mechanic is a core part of the game. You're expected to gain knowledge, die, then return with that knowledge and have an easier time. In other ways though the games are just legitimately hard. Some of the regular enemies and bosses require precise execution.
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Sep 23, 2022 20:59
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That's true, both for the death mechanics and some enemies being incredibly rude, sometimes they also add a new dimension of rudeness, already rude enemies gaining a painful status affliction, for example.
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Sep 23, 2022 23:55
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The Lone Badger posted:I assume the hollows in the asylum have weapons because they were the guards. I think that's possible for the lone hollow soldier, who has better weapons. Edward_Tohr posted:I assumed that the hollows have weapons for the same reason that Sir Whatshisface dropped a corpse into your cell — gameplay takes precedent over lore, and most (all?) of the hollows you’ll be fighting have weapons, so it makes sense for the tutorial ones to also be armed. Likewise, items are found on corpses, so there needs to be a corpse to loot to show you how it works. I think this is the explanation for everyone except maybe that lone soldier Odd Wilson posted:There's that, and also add with it fact that the first Dark Souls is probably the easiest of the bunch. It's a lot slower paced, the hits are frequently heavily telegraphed, parrying is reactionary, and the level and damage scaling are at a decent balance overall. It doesn't even have that many gotchas and mean tricks compared to the following games, it just focuses on the idea that every section of an area is a localized challenge you have to figure out how to deal with, and you have to figure that out yourself. I think I would say that Dark Souls 1 is overall the fairest of the bunch. Few mean gotchas, as you said. But I think Dark Souls 2 is the easiest. It's by far the slowest-paced, and it's frankly just not creative with its challenges. Once you learn to expect ambushes with huge numbers of weak enemies, the game has no tricks left and no enemy presents as much individual challenge as a lot of the tough ones in DS1. As an anecdote about how ridiculously slow some fights are in Dark Souls 2: I once had a controller go dead during the fight against the Old Iron King. I got up, ran to another room, looked around for the other controller, brought it back, sat down, plugged it in, and was still alive to finish the fight. bike tory posted:On the one hand, I think "game that beats your face in if you disrespect threats or mess up" could rightly be considered a hard game. On the other though yeah, most of the difficulty comes from not knowing whats coming. Knowing where the enemies are, what kinds of threats they pose, how to handle them etc makes the game much easier. I think part of the reason there's debate about whether the games are hard or people just need to git gud or whatever is just failing to recognise that the death mechanic is a core part of the game. You're expected to gain knowledge, die, then return with that knowledge and have an easier time. I agree. They're definitely hard games, relatively speaking, in that if you disrespect threats or make mistakes, you'll often die. That is simply not the case in some games. And it's not the case as quickly in others. But a lot of the difficulty does indeed come from not knowing where the enemies are and how to tackle them. If a person is patient and observant, that helps a ton. I almost never died even on my first playthrough simply because I was looking carefully around corners, keeping an eye out for anything weird, etc. And then knowing how to handle things is a huge deal. A lot of the time, people ram their heads against this game using gear that is clearly inappropriate to the challenge and ignoring the piles of different weapons, armor, and problem-solving items the game hands you for free. Blighttown is the classic example. You've been told several times by NPCs that it's a poisonous cesspool, etc. You've picked up numerous different sets of armor that all have different poison resistance values clearly labeled. No matter which side you come to Blighttown from, a shield with 100% poison resistance is available. But nonetheless, some people decide to ignore all that and tackle it with useless heavy armor that doesn't resist poison at all. And don't even decide to change that after immediately running into the first toxic dart enemy in the safe environment where you meet him with plenty of time to retreat if you want to. If the game gives you the resources to solve a problem and a player ignores all those resources, that player is either deliberately creating an extra challenge or is playing badly. Either way, it's not the game being hard in that instance. One reason I really like Dark Souls is that i feel it's a game of strategy as much as one of skill and timing. Just picking the right tools for the job confers a huge advantage in this game.
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Sep 24, 2022 10:00
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Ep 4: The Miniboss Gauntlet This was my most difficult and editing-intensive video yet. I think the result was really good though! In this video I'll be taking on the Black Knight, the Warrior of Havel, the Taurus Demon, and meeting the ever-popular Solaire.
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Oct 2, 2022 19:00
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Your editing remains top notch. I used kbm all the way through the game and it served me well, I found that it was a lot better for multitasking preparations and generally didn't bother me much. E: Regarding hitboxes, there are always a couple wonky ones per game, most enemy spears in DS2 are as wide as they appear but some are as wide as a barrel, in Bloodborne, Ebrietas has an attack that has a badly defined node that causes a hitbox to stretch incorrectly across her side, turning a number of perfectly good dodges into unpleasant slaps. SIGSEGV fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Oct 2, 2022 |
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Oct 2, 2022 23:28
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