[Dark Souls] III | 三 | Drei | Tres | Trois

Billiardball

Oh wow, going back to DS2 after playing Bloodborne and I'm sucking so much.

It's mostly the difference in the dodge. I'm glad noone can see how badly I'm embarrassing myself with this character.

Glal

Every time you feel down just look at my death count, you'll feel much better about it!

[edit] I wish the game put a Mario Maker red cross on every point in the game where you died.

BlazeFire

I had 171 deaths at 14hr on a character when I last checked. :V

furlion

120 hours, all achievements, 680 deaths. Yes I am bad but I do not give up.

Glal

Oh, I gave up all the time, I just kept coming back because Dark Souls. All the rage in the world, 10 minutes later I'm firing it back up with a podcast going to carry me through the worst parts.

BlazeFire

Playing with podcasts is a good idea. I'm intrigued.

Shimshai

I do it all the time. Or I'll put on some other game soundtracks.

Morninglord

I get mad and carry grudges to carry me through tough bits.
I'm like a warhammer dwarf.

GnomeTank

I usually jam some aggressive music, like some drum and bass, or some hard rock. Much like fighting games, I need to be in a good rhythm to play Souls games well, and music helps get me there.

Morninglord

I sometimes feel like I'm under par with a difficult encounter. I often can't react properly. It's like my brain is sluggish and wont think fast enough. Even for fights I know well this can happen. My focus is sometimes really scattered, so sometimes concentrating properly is a large effort: its like overcoming the inertia on a huge machine to get it moving.
Getting a little bit mad basically jump starts my concentration.

I use the same method to find things I've lost.

Course it doesn't always work, if I am not out of it this just makes me worse hehe. But if I'm not out of it, I usually don't get mad anyway.

Glal

I'm the opposite, if I'm focusing on a fight I start getting sloppy as my concentration slips due to frustration or impatience. Listening to a podcast lets me focus some of my attention on that, which makes death jogs less of a chore and lets my reflexes handle the boss fights better.

Morninglord

That happens to me too if the fight is REALLY hard. I'll go way past the point where its helpful and out the other side.

Houn

Oh, I never relayed today's progress:

1. Fuck Kalameet. Not doing that right now.
2. Upgraded the Elite Knight chest, arms and legs to +6/7 until I ran out of mats. Gargoyle helm at +5.
3. Headed to Demon Ruins. Killed the Discharge without much issue.
4. Killed all the Taurus Demons, got the Chaos Ember.
5. Killed the Firesage Demon on my second try; would have been first, but I got greedy and tried to get that last hit in instead of rolling.
6. Found the shortcut door, wiki'd it, joined the Chaos covenant and burned 30 humanity, killed the bug and got the ugly glowhelm.
7. Summoned Solaire, and the two of us took down Centipede Demon on the first run.
8. Made some pokes into Lost Izalith via the Shortcut, but stopped playing there.

All in all, I feel pretty good about my progress today, but I'm starting to burn out. There's so much damn game here, and while I enjoy it, I'm also kinda just wanting to be done and go play something new, because I crave variety like that.

heenato

You are doing Lost Izalith correctly with the shortcut trust me. If you had to do the whole thing, with how burnt out you're getting, you would quit then and there.

Houn

I did not initially realize that I got a ring to walk through the lava after the Centipede Demon, which is why I took the Shortcut, heh.

heenato

Yeah. continue to do the shortcut. Seriously. The shortcut puts you RIGHT outside the boss fog, basically.

Morninglord

I use the shortcut cos its faster, not particularly cos its easier. I mean sure its easier because its shorter and you can run through everything, but when I played it through straight just to see what it was like, it wasn't really all that hard to fight the things in the lava even with fists. You can draw them one at a time etc.

Cromarty

The way I remember it, before the patches that reduced the number of dragon butts and their ability to find you, the lava lake was by far the worst thing in the game.
It is a lot easier now to just run through, where before you almost needed to snipe the butts to get rid of them (they don't respawn).

Also, I am pretty sure the second bonfire in, inside the bridge column right before the root that takes you into the ruin proper, is actually the closest to the boss. It is certainly closer than the chaos covenant bonfire, anyway.

heenato

Morninglord wrote: »

I use the shortcut cos its faster, not particularly cos its easier. I mean sure its easier because its shorter and you can run through everything, but when I played it through straight just to see what it was like, it wasn't really all that hard to fight the things in the lava even with fists. You can draw them one at a time etc.

Yeah, but the shortcut doesn't physically hurt to look at.

Morninglord

Well.
As you can see.
I'm always wearing my shades.

Morninglord

Cromarty wrote: »

The way I remember it, before the patches that reduced the number of dragon butts and their ability to find you, the lava lake was by far the worst thing in the game.
It is a lot easier now to just run through, where before you almost needed to snipe the butts to get rid of them (they don't respawn).

Also, I am pretty sure the second bonfire in, inside the bridge column right before the root that takes you into the ruin proper, is actually the closest to the boss. It is certainly closer than the chaos covenant bonfire, anyway.

That's probably it. I came to DS1 late.

Undead Monkey

Picked up DS2: SotFS with the current Steam sale.

Urgh... what did I get myself into?

Drascin

And here I thought the Shaded Woods couldn't be made more annoying. My challenge for this run is only using huge weapons (because my instinctive playstyle is massively oriented towards ranged and pokey weapons. The slowest thing I ever use normally is a mace. So I figured it could be good variety) and the friggin ghosts that took the place of the lion barbarians are a pain with my hueg axe. I imagine being in starting swordsman armor and 4 Vigor probably has to do with how they'll nearly kill me in three dagger hits if I ever miss a hit, mind :P.

Morninglord

You are using a slow heavy weapon with 4 vigor....

Glal

I can never bring myself to invest into health in these games. Part of me always goes "or you could stick points into X, which will make the fights shorter/easier, and just not get hit".

stopgap

Glal wrote: »

I can never bring myself to invest into health in these games. Part of me always goes "or you could stick points into X, which will make the fights shorter/easier, and just not get hit".

This works better with previously mentioned poky weapons. Gonna recommend a little vigor.

Edit: spelling

Morninglord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pdPqygfnxk

I get it to 20 and then leave it alone until most of my other stats are up near where I want them, then I bump it up. For builds where I know I will take damage because you cannot avoid all damage with some weapons, I will up it sooner.

For pvp I get 40-50.
No exceptions.
See above video for why.

Shimshai

What does Vigor do? Haven't played DS2.

Morninglord

life

Drascin

Morninglord wrote: »

You are using a slow heavy weapon with 4 vigor....

Yup. And actually doing pretty okay, on the whole (I do change weapons often depending on enemy, I'm just not allowing myself to use any of the quick onehanded weapons that I would normally use. "Heavy" weapons for this purpose need not necessarily be only Ultra Geatswords - the idea is absolutely no rapiers, small hammers, straight swords, or any other similar quick onehanded weapons that are what I always use if not restricting myself. As a rule of thumb, if a normal person could reasonably use it in one hand, it's out). It's just that the ghosts were kind of a pain because their flinching was odd. Don't seem to be flinchable while getting up to attacks that would flinch them reliably when already on their feet. And since an attack where I didn't flinch them cost me about 80% of my life in dagger swipes before I could roll out, took me a few deaths to get used to not attacking them while sitting, and never taking the initiative.

Morninglord

Of course you can do it.
It doesn't mean its wise.

It's not like I can talk though.

But still, on all my fist runs, I got a ton of health.

Frankly, someone without any vigor that complains about difficulty, I'm gonna be like "no shit?" :P

Cromarty

Glal wrote: »

I can never bring myself to invest into health in these games. Part of me always goes "or you could stick points into X, which will make the fights shorter/easier, and just not get hit".

More health is more room for error, which means a lot in such a punishing game as Dark Souls 2. Surviving an extra hit or what would have been a one hit kill will win you more battles than dealing even a hundred points more per swing. More importantly, more room for error is more room to learn from mistakes, and in this game, knowledge is power.

Morninglord

It's just more efficient. You spend less time dying and more time learning. In the end no matter how much life you have you can't face tank your way through everything in DS2 like you could in DS1, so there's no point in not getting any to make the learning less frustrating. You still have to learn to dodge/block to beat all the bosses regardless.

It also opens up options for dealing with really annoying enemies, such as deliberate trades that will kill them, or poising through their attacks to start a combo.
I view my lifebar as another tool. If I can take a hit and then strike back hard enough to kill the enemy and the enemy is more annoying to kill with dodging and blocking, I do it, because I'm pragmatic like that and its just a health bar.

Houn

Took a number of tries, but I took down the Bed of Chaos. Kept missing that stupid jump to the path under it.

Then I warped over to Tomb of Giants with my new flashlight hat and downed Nito in one.

Four Lord Souls Acquired!

Shimshai

You're almost there, the last stretch is very short indeed.

Zek

I think I may be becoming a filthy casual... Playing the Bloodborne DLC made me start to really wish that Souls games would just place save points right outside the boss rooms. It's like, come on guys, you know I'm just going to sprint past everybody to get back there. It's not hard, I probably won't get hit. Why you gotta waste my time?

Oh well, I'll be satisfied as long as free estus flask refills are back in DS3. And dare I hope for better load times?

Shimshai

The Oolacile Ivory Catalyst is a neat little toy. Being able to use sorcery and deal decent damage with minimal skill investment is great for a hybrid build, or just for general screwing around.

Houn

And that's Lord Gwyn. Was a bit anti-climactic.

Guess I should go YouTube some Dark Souls lore vids, because I only have a basic idea wtf was going on.

heenato

Yup. Gwyn is a really anticlimatic, and kinda fitting boss. Especially if you're good at parrying. because then he just crumbles like a chump.

Shimshai

When I came across Gwyn, I slammed him into the ground five times with the Zweihander, and that was all it took.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy, I mean I probably got lucky on the timing but still.

Fuckin' stray demon gave me more shit than that.