gonna be honest, i started off hating invaders and the whole concept of it, but after four games of it honestly its such an amazing concept to give completely new experiences every time you play
occasionally you get somebody absolutely toxic (mostly the hacking variety, which you can normally avoid by playing on console), but 95% of the time just somebody trying to be an enemy in your world, with the same toolset you do. just flow with it. worst case you die and... that's it. its exactly the same as if you died to a monster in your world. no big deal.
Two things:
The same Toolset thing only came with DS3. In DS1 and DS2 if you weren't playing on launch week the invader will 95% of the time hilariously outgear you.
Secondly, this is all well and good for those of us who have played through every game since Demon Souls. Personally I can trivialize any invasion, you just backtrack to a bonfire and fight them there. Or suicide by one. Or don't even Ember up until you hit a boss gate to summon. And even then I'm only okay with this because I understand Souls are pretend money that eventually you don't need.
Joe Blow who gave up on DS1 and buys DS3 because all the positive buzz around it, does not know these things.
For the record I think PvP and Invading was as "fair" as it could be in DS3. DS1 was....what it was for a first attempt. Could get overly bad though.
But DS2's took all the bad things about DS1, made it so you would get invaded permanently, undead or no, and then gave you a demoralizing health loss after every death. That shit was inexcusable.
the fun thing about the arugment on invaders is that it really doesn't matter. these games exist already.
But also the invasion mechanics, the pvp in the game? it's largely why it has legs. Dark souls 2 got a lot of updates, fixed a lot of things, for pvp. it stayed a top streaming game for a while, for pvp.
Dark souls 3 kinda dropped off real quick, because the pvp was bad.
in closing, at least we can all agree that dark souls 2 was probably the best one.
Getting invaded is weird because it can be a really negative play experience, but if you get invaded and win? That is a really awesome play experience. So yeah.
Again ymmv because if I get invaded and win i'm just glad it's over and grumpy about my time being wasted having to do something I really don't enjoy.
What a year for games this has been! I bought the season pass for DS3 immediately with the game, and I'm only just now getting back to it to play through The Ringed City.
Not because I was intentionally putting it off or anything. Dark Souls 3 is my favorite PS4 game and Soulsborne game (by a mile), and I've been really anticipating giving it another run pretty much all year. Though, at the same time I guess I don't really want it to end?
I guess it doesn't have to, though. I hold a DS3 platinum, taking 4 or so different character builds through the game some 7 times, and I've still only used a tiny percentage of the weapon and build options this game has to offer. Not to mention, I never played any DS2 DLC at all, and that's my second favorite Soulsborne game, so I'll probably pick up Scholar of the First Sin sometime after I wrap up DS3.
I decided I wanted to use one of the new weapons from the DLC packs this time. Flipping through the wiki, the one that's caught my eye is the Crow's Quills. The only Dex build I've done so far was actually a Dex+Luck Bleed build with twinblades, so this time I figured I'd go more "pure" Dex. That feels appropriately old-school for me since my first Dark Souls character was a rapier-using Dex build.
Just started it last night and cleared Vordt. I'm currently using a Rapier in my left hand and a Dagger in my right. I gotta say, this loadout is boss. How have I never tried this before? Quick stab with some range via the left hand, gets you in close and does a small stagger, then go to town with right-hand quick slashes. Easy access to major Dagger crit damage, too. It's brutal, though you still have to jump in and out against lots of enemies because the Dagger won't keep them staggered. I need to get tons of practice with the Rapier's L2 parry timing, though I'm not sure if I should really dedicate to that since I'll be swapping out my loadout as soon as I can survive a suicide run to the Quills (and maybe sooner if I find other fun toys I've forgotten about).
I forgot how much I absolutely adore this game. Getting back into it was so fun you guys. I'm still giddy from the high of it. My Soulsborne history goes all the way back to Demon's Souls, but I always played these games as something of a coward. I focused a bunch on magic and ranged attacks and almost always summoned for every single boss fight. Unsurprisingly I had the most trouble with Bloodborne, having greater difficulties summoning and with far fewer options for building your character to tackle the challenges before you. It's still my least favorite, but I can't deny that it's made me a lot better at the game. So this time, I'm going to do my absolute best to clear all the bosses solo. I've done maybe half of them that way in the past (worked out that way almost randomly just from the playing required to get the platinum), but I don't think I've ever actually done Vordt until last night.
I wasn't even sure I could! Like, I had vague memories of his 2nd half rushing attacks being so brutal, that I was only ever able to take him on by attacking when he went after someone else and frantically rolling around when he was focused on me, unable to find any moment to make an attack of my own. Not this time. Timing the dodges was actually pretty easy, and I felled him on only my second attempt. I shouldn't feel so good about beating the first major DS3 boss for the zillionth time, but this was different -- to do it quickly, almost effortlessly, with no shield, on a largely under-equipped Deprived start, felt good. And the fighting felt good. Instead of being super stressed and scared of the bosses, I'm just dancing with its rhythm and taking it on, on my on terms.
These games are so good you guys. This one in particular.
I have a question about The Ringed City DLC! In Ashes of Ariandel, there were some additional / alternate dialogue lines if you followed a certain questline from the main game. Is there anything like this in The Ringed City? Should I do or not do any particular thing while going through the main story? The fextralife wiki gives a recommended level of 100+ for TRC, which means I'll definitely be clearing everything else (including Ashes content) before going there.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
You'll want to finish Ashes of Ariandel before you go for The Ringed City, I think, but otherwise I don't know if there's anything in particular?
It's somewhat self-contained, except for some links to Ashes. And even then you could technically go for TRC first, although that would be a bit weird.
Did a speed run through half of Ariandel to get to the Crow's Quills immediately upon reaching the Cathedral. I remember that area being super hard before, but the "bravely run away from everything" strategy is hilariously effective there thanks to all the wide-open spaces. Got 4 bonfires and the weapon, all before hitting SL30.
I like it pretty well. It's strong and effective as a standard 1H rapier-type, and the dual-wield combo is brutal, offering similar speed (and slashing damage type) as the Dagger but longer range. The Weapon Art appears entirely useless outside of stopping incantations; regular throwing knives are more accurate and (at least for now) do more damage, though we'll see what happens once this is Sharp +10.
Left-handed it doesn't have a parry option, so I'm having to right-hand it. I'm switching between its dual-wield mode and a Buckler in my left hand for parrying. The crit damage is only slightly less than a Dagger at similar upgrade levels, so it's worth the change. I went ahead and infused the old rapier with Fire, off-handing it on the occasion where that's needed (like the sludge enemies throughout the Cathedral).
I had something pretty awesome happen in Farron! I got invaded by some guy, but it was definitely not a typical invasion. He ran around with a torch, guiding me through the swamp to all the key points, including the fire keeps and major treasures. He dropped some Purple Moss Clumps on the ground when I got poisoned, threw firebombs at enemies as recommendations for me to attempt the same, used the "HEY!" emote if we got separated, dropped Prism Stones at key points. Basically he invades people's swamps and then guides them around. He was also a total badass, making quick work of two Blue Sentinels that got summoned in to "help" (and either didn't recognize or didn't care what was going on).
When I finally perished to a Ghru (I couldn't bonfire with this guy there, so my healing resources eventually emptied), he did the kneeling head-bow emote next to my vanishing corpse.
Not quite Fashion Police levels of epic invasion, but probably the next best thing. 9/10, would get invaded again.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
Yeah, I've run into a few, "hey let's party!" invaders who are super helpful.
And then I usually get murdered, but it's fine! It's better that being butchered by a horrible monster!
I have a question about The Ringed City DLC! In Ashes of Ariandel, there were some additional / alternate dialogue lines if you followed a certain questline from the main game. Is there anything like this in The Ringed City? Should I do or not do any particular thing while going through the main story? The fextralife wiki gives a recommended level of 100+ for TRC, which means I'll definitely be clearing everything else (including Ashes content) before going there.
Dialogue slightly changes if you do the
Lord of Londor
ending path. But it doesn't give you new insights into what the hell is going on at the Ringed City. It's more an acknowledgment of the role you've chosen to play in the end of the world.
Finally went and got ringed city and hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooolllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy shhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit mmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy ffffffffffffrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmerrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate
I was clowning it up in the Faithful invasion area, hanging out in a corner after firing a Seed of a Giant Tree when I got double-invaded, trolling basically until one got bored and left. When the dude that didn't leave finally found me, he poked me with a sword (for wasting his time probably), then dropped 3 Champion Souls on the ground and peace'd out.
Thanks, random person, for 75k souls! I bought me some more VIT so I can walk around under 30% while wearing more than a loincloth.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
Oh cooooooool I got past and then a jackoff hollow jumped on my head and pushed me off a cliff
dark souls!
Nah, that implies pretty hard but generally fair (not counting PVP), which IME is usually the case with the Souls games.
There's nothing fair about that archer platform. You have one way to get past it, and you die immediately if you don't pull it off pretty much perfectly.
Honest question; Does the rest of the Ringed City DLC continue with shit like this? Because if so, I don't want to keep doing this. This is the opposite of fun.
I ask because I'm 100% going to flip my shit trying to get past this, and I have less awful things I could be doing with my time. This is one of those things that's not even going to be fun to get past, because I'll be too mad about it by the time that happens.
Shit like this with basically zero margin for error is rarely something I get any fun out of.
Oh cooooooool I got past and then a jackoff hollow jumped on my head and pushed me off a cliff
dark souls!
Nah, that implies pretty hard but generally fair (not counting PVP), which IME is usually the case with the Souls games.
There's nothing fair about that archer platform. You have one way to get past it, and you die immediately if you don't pull it off pretty much perfectly.
Honest question; Does the rest of the Ringed City DLC continue with shit like this? Because if so, I don't want to keep doing this. This is the opposite of fun.
I ask because I'm 100% going to flip my shit trying to get past this, and I have less awful things I could be doing with my time. This is one of those things that's not even going to be fun to get past, because I'll be too mad about it by the time that happens.
Shit like this with basically zero margin for error is rarely something I get any fun out of.
It's just this one section.
How to do it:
Stick to the right-hand side of the path and hide behind gravestones arranged in L-shapes. At the... third? one, you can jump off the side and safely run all the way to the guy spawning them.
Killing him can be tough, but also cheesable if you have a decent bow.
Oh cooooooool I got past and then a jackoff hollow jumped on my head and pushed me off a cliff
dark souls!
Nah, that implies pretty hard but generally fair (not counting PVP), which IME is usually the case with the Souls games.
There's nothing fair about that archer platform. You have one way to get past it, and you die immediately if you don't pull it off pretty much perfectly.
Honest question; Does the rest of the Ringed City DLC continue with shit like this? Because if so, I don't want to keep doing this. This is the opposite of fun.
I ask because I'm 100% going to flip my shit trying to get past this, and I have less awful things I could be doing with my time. This is one of those things that's not even going to be fun to get past, because I'll be too mad about it by the time that happens.
Shit like this with basically zero margin for error is rarely something I get any fun out of.
It's just this one section.
How to do it:
Stick to the right-hand side of the path and hide behind gravestones arranged in L-shapes. At the... third? one, you can jump off the side and safely run all the way to the guy spawning them.
Killing him can be tough, but also cheesable if you have a decent bow.
Also for the section in question:
When it's time to kill the judicator there are actually tombstones to the left of where he is, that protects you from both archer spawns
Oh cooooooool I got past and then a jackoff hollow jumped on my head and pushed me off a cliff
dark souls!
Nah, that implies pretty hard but generally fair (not counting PVP), which IME is usually the case with the Souls games.
There's nothing fair about that archer platform. You have one way to get past it, and you die immediately if you don't pull it off pretty much perfectly.
Honest question; Does the rest of the Ringed City DLC continue with shit like this? Because if so, I don't want to keep doing this. This is the opposite of fun.
I ask because I'm 100% going to flip my shit trying to get past this, and I have less awful things I could be doing with my time. This is one of those things that's not even going to be fun to get past, because I'll be too mad about it by the time that happens.
Shit like this with basically zero margin for error is rarely something I get any fun out of.
It's just this one section.
How to do it:
Stick to the right-hand side of the path and hide behind gravestones arranged in L-shapes. At the... third? one, you can jump off the side and safely run all the way to the guy spawning them.
Killing him can be tough, but also cheesable if you have a decent bow.
Oh cooooooool I got past and then a jackoff hollow jumped on my head and pushed me off a cliff
dark souls!
Nah, that implies pretty hard but generally fair (not counting PVP), which IME is usually the case with the Souls games.
There's nothing fair about that archer platform. You have one way to get past it, and you die immediately if you don't pull it off pretty much perfectly.
Honest question; Does the rest of the Ringed City DLC continue with shit like this? Because if so, I don't want to keep doing this. This is the opposite of fun.
I ask because I'm 100% going to flip my shit trying to get past this, and I have less awful things I could be doing with my time. This is one of those things that's not even going to be fun to get past, because I'll be too mad about it by the time that happens.
Shit like this with basically zero margin for error is rarely something I get any fun out of.
It's just this one section.
How to do it:
Stick to the right-hand side of the path and hide behind gravestones arranged in L-shapes. At the... third? one, you can jump off the side and safely run all the way to the guy spawning them.
Killing him can be tough, but also cheesable if you have a decent bow.
Am I supposed to stop and hide mid-run?
There's enough time to run to the next cover spot between each summoning, I'm pretty sure.
Oh cooooooool I got past and then a jackoff hollow jumped on my head and pushed me off a cliff
dark souls!
Nah, that implies pretty hard but generally fair (not counting PVP), which IME is usually the case with the Souls games.
There's nothing fair about that archer platform. You have one way to get past it, and you die immediately if you don't pull it off pretty much perfectly.
Honest question; Does the rest of the Ringed City DLC continue with shit like this? Because if so, I don't want to keep doing this. This is the opposite of fun.
I ask because I'm 100% going to flip my shit trying to get past this, and I have less awful things I could be doing with my time. This is one of those things that's not even going to be fun to get past, because I'll be too mad about it by the time that happens.
Shit like this with basically zero margin for error is rarely something I get any fun out of.
It's just this one section.
How to do it:
Stick to the right-hand side of the path and hide behind gravestones arranged in L-shapes. At the... third? one, you can jump off the side and safely run all the way to the guy spawning them.
Killing him can be tough, but also cheesable if you have a decent bow.
Am I supposed to stop and hide mid-run?
There's enough time to run to the next cover spot between each summoning, I'm pretty sure.
Got past it, thanks.
Now I just can't get past the three fuckers attacking me when I have literally no room to move.
AND THEY WONT COME DOWN THE FUCKING LADDER WHERE I CAN ACTUALLY DEAL WITH THEM SAFELY.
I just...
What the flying fuck, guys? The archers aren't enough? THE FUCKING ARCHERS REALLY AREN'T ENOUGH?!
HE TAKES ONE FUCKING DAMAGE PER ARROW FROM THE SAFE SPOT?!
Wh
I don't....
I sincerely do not see any reasonable way to do this.
Am I not supposed to kill him? Am I supposed to just run past him? Nothing else seems reasonable at all at this point.
Hold on. I shall save you. Give me.....30 minutes to record this.
You could just tell me what to do.
Your answer will determine whether or not I'm willing to actually bother going forward with this, because this is absolute garbage and I feel like I've been stolen from for having paid for money for the sole benefit of screaming at my computer screen.
Maybe it's better for non-PC users, who aren't literally playing in slow motion? This place is an FPS vacuum. Blight town's got nothing on this shithole.
Like, the ONLY part where I could actually stay online was the DiP & DfB bossfight. It's non-stop slow motion for about 95% of everything else thus far and staying online is legitimately not possible for me with every single setting (including resolution) at bare minimum.
I really do appreciate that you went to the effort, Transporter, but I wish you'd just told me instead of spent that time doing the recording because I am NOT doing that right now.
Dealing with this shit has set off my anxiety and I just cannot deal with MORE of the "Dodge the never ending god damn bullshit barrage" game right now. It's not happening.
why did nobody just tell goatmon he didn't have to fight the guy
I don't understand the skip video either, there's a place to drop down out of range of the archers just after the second third set or so of gravestones you can hide behind. there's no reason to get that close to the judicator. you can see it in transporters video when he fights the skeleton
Finally went back to DS3 and finished the Painted World DLC for the first time! Final boss was pretty tough (it's a NG+ file) until I remembered the strengths of the twinswords moveset and started being more aggressive.
Should I jump right into the Ringed City or should I go back and actually complete Scholar of the First Sin?
Finally went back to DS3 and finished the Painted World DLC for the first time! Final boss was pretty tough (it's a NG+ file) until I remembered the strengths of the twinswords moveset and started being more aggressive.
Should I jump right into the Ringed City or should I go back and actually complete Scholar of the First Sin?
Personally I'd do Scholar first.
Going from DS2 to DS3 is a way easier transition than DS3 to DS2.
Plus it's nice and meaty so when you're done Ringed City wil feel like a proper culmination of everything.
Finally made it to the Ringed City! This DLC is amazing, I'm loving pretty much every bit of it.
I did leave the Friede battle for now, because I still want to beat it without summoning. It was incredibly difficult without Gael even at level 102, so I figured I'd come back to it later since I bet most of the Ringed City content is not as hard.
So far I've been right about that. Dreg Heap was just a ton of fun! I'm really liking all the alternates to the old dragon mechanisms for enemy hazards. The Angels in particular are excellent - fantastic visual and sound design, and their attacks are much more entertaining to avoid than dragon's fire. I also like that shooting them does nothing, but that you can permanently eradicate them by killing their summoners. That keeps pacing exactly where it should be.
I got invaded by some guy in the poison swamp area (because of course there's another poisonous swamp). I popped a Seed of a Giant Tree and watched him run and hide from the Angel's blasts, it was hilarious. Joke was on me though, as I got overconfident, ran out, and got blasted into smithereens. Luckily I managed to get the Ring of Favor +3 before death, so hooray for that!
The demon bosses were fantastic. They're somewhere up there in my top 5 favorite Souls bosses ever, they were just so much fun. I couldn't ever figure out how to avoid the raining fire meteors of death from that one version of the Demon Prince, but the other version having death lasers that you can dodge with the Stretch Out emote? Just, everything about that fight was aces.
The summoner bit with the archer legion of death was also fantastic, the other excellent alternative to boring strafing dragons. Getting to the 3rd tombstone set was easy, but it took me a few tries to figure out the proper path to take afterward. I gave killing the summoner a few good tries, but it's really difficult to slay him while dodging all those close-up archer summons. I couldn't find a spot to arrow him to death from. I hoped to find a bonfire behind him so I could try it in reverse, but no luck. At some point I'll go back and slay him, but for now I wanted to just keep moving forward and exploring.
I got invaded again right at the next bonfire. A Blade of the Darkmoon appeared to defend me, and cue a hilarious high-octane chase through the level's next set of corridors. He'd run up to some monsters to get help, the two of us would fight him off while slaying the enemies, and he'd run on ahead to the next group. In retrospect that bit seemed a little easy and flat compared to the others I've seen so far, so it was probably very timely to have such an interesting and entertaining invasion.
We were victorious, and as soon as the two other players departed, two more Blades showed up in my game for some reason. Both of them immediately got their reward and were de-summoned. Hooray for them getting easy Proofs, I guess!
I found the next bonfire too, but I resisted resting and kept on exploring. I got pretty far and found tons of items, but then I ran into an NPC invader when I was pretty much out of Estus. That meant no Homeward Bone, no bonfires, and little chance of victory. So, I put on a Ring of Sacrifice (had like 105k souls at this point) and sprinted around, picking up stuff and doing as many things as possible before eventually falling.
I can't wait to get back into it! I still have so many places to explore. The Ringed Knights are right bastards, and the headless vine-men are brutal, but I absolutely adore the extra attention given to using plunging attacks against them.
Also, I think Amnesiac Lapp is Patches. I have some minor spoilers for the end of the DLC, but nothing else, so I don't really know his story. But he sounds like Good Patches, like if Patches decided to try to emulate Siegward. He even tells you about a treasure to go find, and it's legit!
I don't want this to end! I'd buy DLCs like this one pretty much forever if they kept making them.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
Yo, @the sause that plunge kill animation is definitely one of the coolest things I ever got to do in these games.
And the Demons boss is really cool for sure. I just wish it wasn't two fights in a row, so I wouldn't have so much trouble not running out of flasks while sunbroing it up.
Who's Lapp? I have access to the boss guy who gives that speech before you fight him, and I can go to fight the Hidden Dragon boss, but I haven't seen anything like that guy yet. Does he not show up until later?
Who's Lapp? I have access to the boss guy who gives that speech before you fight him, and I can go to fight the Hidden Dragon boss, but I haven't seen anything like that guy yet. Does he not show up until later?
Pretty sure I'm not as far as you! I haven't seen the stuff you're talking about there yet.
Lapp first appears in the Dreg Heap. He appears there at least twice; first time is just after the two Lothric Knights, in the raised area up on the right. Then he appears again at the next bonfire (area just before the Angel guarding the first pieces of the Desert Sorceress set). After that he shows up in the Ringed City, hiding off in a corner behind some Ringed Knights, apparently waiting for me to tell him something about Purging Peak? He may have also shown up once before then, on the balcony by the bonfire after the summoner, but maybe that was the bug-man instead. Can't recall.
If you missed him in Dreg Heap, I'm not sure he'll show back up. But I haven't read anything at all about him or his quest line.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
Apparently, anyone with a friendly summon sign on the ground in The Ringed City can get summoned as a spear of the church during the Judicator fight, and go after the player.
You even have a honed soul mass passive that keeps activating while you're fighting. It's.... weird and kinda neat, but I'm not thrilled about my white soap stone pulling me into PVP against a host.
Spears of the Church is great fun. I actually won a 3 v 1 once with a Giantdad build, in a feat never to be replicated (with Lucatiel's bearded mask and Lapp's armor).
Posts
Two things:
The same Toolset thing only came with DS3. In DS1 and DS2 if you weren't playing on launch week the invader will 95% of the time hilariously outgear you.
Secondly, this is all well and good for those of us who have played through every game since Demon Souls. Personally I can trivialize any invasion, you just backtrack to a bonfire and fight them there. Or suicide by one. Or don't even Ember up until you hit a boss gate to summon. And even then I'm only okay with this because I understand Souls are pretend money that eventually you don't need.
Joe Blow who gave up on DS1 and buys DS3 because all the positive buzz around it, does not know these things.
For the record I think PvP and Invading was as "fair" as it could be in DS3. DS1 was....what it was for a first attempt. Could get overly bad though.
But DS2's took all the bad things about DS1, made it so you would get invaded permanently, undead or no, and then gave you a demoralizing health loss after every death. That shit was inexcusable.
But also the invasion mechanics, the pvp in the game? it's largely why it has legs. Dark souls 2 got a lot of updates, fixed a lot of things, for pvp. it stayed a top streaming game for a while, for pvp.
Dark souls 3 kinda dropped off real quick, because the pvp was bad.
in closing, at least we can all agree that dark souls 2 was probably the best one.
Again ymmv because if I get invaded and win i'm just glad it's over and grumpy about my time being wasted having to do something I really don't enjoy.
Not because I was intentionally putting it off or anything. Dark Souls 3 is my favorite PS4 game and Soulsborne game (by a mile), and I've been really anticipating giving it another run pretty much all year. Though, at the same time I guess I don't really want it to end?
I guess it doesn't have to, though. I hold a DS3 platinum, taking 4 or so different character builds through the game some 7 times, and I've still only used a tiny percentage of the weapon and build options this game has to offer. Not to mention, I never played any DS2 DLC at all, and that's my second favorite Soulsborne game, so I'll probably pick up Scholar of the First Sin sometime after I wrap up DS3.
I decided I wanted to use one of the new weapons from the DLC packs this time. Flipping through the wiki, the one that's caught my eye is the Crow's Quills. The only Dex build I've done so far was actually a Dex+Luck Bleed build with twinblades, so this time I figured I'd go more "pure" Dex. That feels appropriately old-school for me since my first Dark Souls character was a rapier-using Dex build.
Just started it last night and cleared Vordt. I'm currently using a Rapier in my left hand and a Dagger in my right. I gotta say, this loadout is boss. How have I never tried this before? Quick stab with some range via the left hand, gets you in close and does a small stagger, then go to town with right-hand quick slashes. Easy access to major Dagger crit damage, too. It's brutal, though you still have to jump in and out against lots of enemies because the Dagger won't keep them staggered. I need to get tons of practice with the Rapier's L2 parry timing, though I'm not sure if I should really dedicate to that since I'll be swapping out my loadout as soon as I can survive a suicide run to the Quills (and maybe sooner if I find other fun toys I've forgotten about).
I forgot how much I absolutely adore this game. Getting back into it was so fun you guys. I'm still giddy from the high of it. My Soulsborne history goes all the way back to Demon's Souls, but I always played these games as something of a coward. I focused a bunch on magic and ranged attacks and almost always summoned for every single boss fight. Unsurprisingly I had the most trouble with Bloodborne, having greater difficulties summoning and with far fewer options for building your character to tackle the challenges before you. It's still my least favorite, but I can't deny that it's made me a lot better at the game. So this time, I'm going to do my absolute best to clear all the bosses solo. I've done maybe half of them that way in the past (worked out that way almost randomly just from the playing required to get the platinum), but I don't think I've ever actually done Vordt until last night.
I wasn't even sure I could! Like, I had vague memories of his 2nd half rushing attacks being so brutal, that I was only ever able to take him on by attacking when he went after someone else and frantically rolling around when he was focused on me, unable to find any moment to make an attack of my own. Not this time. Timing the dodges was actually pretty easy, and I felled him on only my second attempt. I shouldn't feel so good about beating the first major DS3 boss for the zillionth time, but this was different -- to do it quickly, almost effortlessly, with no shield, on a largely under-equipped Deprived start, felt good. And the fighting felt good. Instead of being super stressed and scared of the bosses, I'm just dancing with its rhythm and taking it on, on my on terms.
These games are so good you guys. This one in particular.
I have a question about The Ringed City DLC! In Ashes of Ariandel, there were some additional / alternate dialogue lines if you followed a certain questline from the main game. Is there anything like this in The Ringed City? Should I do or not do any particular thing while going through the main story? The fextralife wiki gives a recommended level of 100+ for TRC, which means I'll definitely be clearing everything else (including Ashes content) before going there.
It's somewhat self-contained, except for some links to Ashes. And even then you could technically go for TRC first, although that would be a bit weird.
I like it pretty well. It's strong and effective as a standard 1H rapier-type, and the dual-wield combo is brutal, offering similar speed (and slashing damage type) as the Dagger but longer range. The Weapon Art appears entirely useless outside of stopping incantations; regular throwing knives are more accurate and (at least for now) do more damage, though we'll see what happens once this is Sharp +10.
Left-handed it doesn't have a parry option, so I'm having to right-hand it. I'm switching between its dual-wield mode and a Buckler in my left hand for parrying. The crit damage is only slightly less than a Dagger at similar upgrade levels, so it's worth the change. I went ahead and infused the old rapier with Fire, off-handing it on the occasion where that's needed (like the sludge enemies throughout the Cathedral).
I had something pretty awesome happen in Farron! I got invaded by some guy, but it was definitely not a typical invasion. He ran around with a torch, guiding me through the swamp to all the key points, including the fire keeps and major treasures. He dropped some Purple Moss Clumps on the ground when I got poisoned, threw firebombs at enemies as recommendations for me to attempt the same, used the "HEY!" emote if we got separated, dropped Prism Stones at key points. Basically he invades people's swamps and then guides them around. He was also a total badass, making quick work of two Blue Sentinels that got summoned in to "help" (and either didn't recognize or didn't care what was going on).
When I finally perished to a Ghru (I couldn't bonfire with this guy there, so my healing resources eventually emptied), he did the kneeling head-bow emote next to my vanishing corpse.
Not quite Fashion Police levels of epic invasion, but probably the next best thing. 9/10, would get invaded again.
And then I usually get murdered, but it's fine! It's better that being butchered by a horrible monster!
Dialogue slightly changes if you do the
ending path. But it doesn't give you new insights into what the hell is going on at the Ringed City. It's more an acknowledgment of the role you've chosen to play in the end of the world.
hackers are getting out of control in this game
I was clowning it up in the Faithful invasion area, hanging out in a corner after firing a Seed of a Giant Tree when I got double-invaded, trolling basically until one got bored and left. When the dude that didn't leave finally found me, he poked me with a sword (for wasting his time probably), then dropped 3 Champion Souls on the ground and peace'd out.
Thanks, random person, for 75k souls! I bought me some more VIT so I can walk around under 30% while wearing more than a loincloth.
Nah, that implies pretty hard but generally fair (not counting PVP), which IME is usually the case with the Souls games.
There's nothing fair about that archer platform. You have one way to get past it, and you die immediately if you don't pull it off pretty much perfectly.
Honest question; Does the rest of the Ringed City DLC continue with shit like this? Because if so, I don't want to keep doing this. This is the opposite of fun.
I ask because I'm 100% going to flip my shit trying to get past this, and I have less awful things I could be doing with my time. This is one of those things that's not even going to be fun to get past, because I'll be too mad about it by the time that happens.
Shit like this with basically zero margin for error is rarely something I get any fun out of.
It's just this one section.
How to do it:
Killing him can be tough, but also cheesable if you have a decent bow.
Also for the section in question:
Now I just can't get past the three fuckers attacking me when I have literally no room to move.
AND THEY WONT COME DOWN THE FUCKING LADDER WHERE I CAN ACTUALLY DEAL WITH THEM SAFELY.
I just...
What the flying fuck, guys? The archers aren't enough? THE FUCKING ARCHERS REALLY AREN'T ENOUGH?!
This is horribly designed.
HE TAKES ONE FUCKING DAMAGE PER ARROW FROM THE SAFE SPOT?!
Wh
I don't....
I sincerely do not see any reasonable way to do this.
Am I not supposed to kill him? Am I supposed to just run past him? Nothing else seems reasonable at all at this point.
Hold on. I shall save you. Give me.....30 minutes to record this.
Your answer will determine whether or not I'm willing to actually bother going forward with this, because this is absolute garbage and I feel like I've been stolen from for having paid for money for the sole benefit of screaming at my computer screen.
This is insane.
Maybe it's better for non-PC users, who aren't literally playing in slow motion? This place is an FPS vacuum. Blight town's got nothing on this shithole.
7 minutes in for the kill.
Full video for the two rusty fuckups!
I really do appreciate that you went to the effort, Transporter, but I wish you'd just told me instead of spent that time doing the recording because I am NOT doing that right now.
Dealing with this shit has set off my anxiety and I just cannot deal with MORE of the "Dodge the never ending god damn bullshit barrage" game right now. It's not happening.
Thanks anyway, though.
......and I can't get it to work. Can't get over the rail.
Either I suck too much to make this work, or they patched it out.
edit: Found out you can walk right by the fucker upstairs and just fuck off. So yaaaaaay.
I don't understand the skip video either, there's a place to drop down out of range of the archers just after the second third set or so of gravestones you can hide behind. there's no reason to get that close to the judicator. you can see it in transporters video when he fights the skeleton
Should I jump right into the Ringed City or should I go back and actually complete Scholar of the First Sin?
Personally I'd do Scholar first.
Going from DS2 to DS3 is a way easier transition than DS3 to DS2.
Plus it's nice and meaty so when you're done Ringed City wil feel like a proper culmination of everything.
So far I've been right about that. Dreg Heap was just a ton of fun! I'm really liking all the alternates to the old dragon mechanisms for enemy hazards. The Angels in particular are excellent - fantastic visual and sound design, and their attacks are much more entertaining to avoid than dragon's fire. I also like that shooting them does nothing, but that you can permanently eradicate them by killing their summoners. That keeps pacing exactly where it should be.
I got invaded by some guy in the poison swamp area (because of course there's another poisonous swamp). I popped a Seed of a Giant Tree and watched him run and hide from the Angel's blasts, it was hilarious. Joke was on me though, as I got overconfident, ran out, and got blasted into smithereens. Luckily I managed to get the Ring of Favor +3 before death, so hooray for that!
The demon bosses were fantastic. They're somewhere up there in my top 5 favorite Souls bosses ever, they were just so much fun. I couldn't ever figure out how to avoid the raining fire meteors of death from that one version of the Demon Prince, but the other version having death lasers that you can dodge with the Stretch Out emote? Just, everything about that fight was aces.
The summoner bit with the archer legion of death was also fantastic, the other excellent alternative to boring strafing dragons. Getting to the 3rd tombstone set was easy, but it took me a few tries to figure out the proper path to take afterward. I gave killing the summoner a few good tries, but it's really difficult to slay him while dodging all those close-up archer summons. I couldn't find a spot to arrow him to death from. I hoped to find a bonfire behind him so I could try it in reverse, but no luck. At some point I'll go back and slay him, but for now I wanted to just keep moving forward and exploring.
I got invaded again right at the next bonfire. A Blade of the Darkmoon appeared to defend me, and cue a hilarious high-octane chase through the level's next set of corridors. He'd run up to some monsters to get help, the two of us would fight him off while slaying the enemies, and he'd run on ahead to the next group. In retrospect that bit seemed a little easy and flat compared to the others I've seen so far, so it was probably very timely to have such an interesting and entertaining invasion.
We were victorious, and as soon as the two other players departed, two more Blades showed up in my game for some reason. Both of them immediately got their reward and were de-summoned. Hooray for them getting easy Proofs, I guess!
I found the next bonfire too, but I resisted resting and kept on exploring. I got pretty far and found tons of items, but then I ran into an NPC invader when I was pretty much out of Estus. That meant no Homeward Bone, no bonfires, and little chance of victory. So, I put on a Ring of Sacrifice (had like 105k souls at this point) and sprinted around, picking up stuff and doing as many things as possible before eventually falling.
I can't wait to get back into it! I still have so many places to explore. The Ringed Knights are right bastards, and the headless vine-men are brutal, but I absolutely adore the extra attention given to using plunging attacks against them.
Also, I think Amnesiac Lapp is Patches. I have some minor spoilers for the end of the DLC, but nothing else, so I don't really know his story. But he sounds like Good Patches, like if Patches decided to try to emulate Siegward. He even tells you about a treasure to go find, and it's legit!
And the Demons boss is really cool for sure. I just wish it wasn't two fights in a row, so I wouldn't have so much trouble not running out of flasks while sunbroing it up.
Lapp first appears in the Dreg Heap. He appears there at least twice; first time is just after the two Lothric Knights, in the raised area up on the right. Then he appears again at the next bonfire (area just before the Angel guarding the first pieces of the Desert Sorceress set). After that he shows up in the Ringed City, hiding off in a corner behind some Ringed Knights, apparently waiting for me to tell him something about Purging Peak? He may have also shown up once before then, on the balcony by the bonfire after the summoner, but maybe that was the bug-man instead. Can't recall.
If you missed him in Dreg Heap, I'm not sure he'll show back up. But I haven't read anything at all about him or his quest line.
I'm not good at understanding directions, and will have to watch a video to find out where he is.
Apparently, anyone with a friendly summon sign on the ground in The Ringed City can get summoned as a spear of the church during the Judicator fight, and go after the player.
You even have a honed soul mass passive that keeps activating while you're fighting. It's.... weird and kinda neat, but I'm not thrilled about my white soap stone pulling me into PVP against a host.