KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
Disliked areas, by game:
Dark Souls: Sen's Fortress, The Great Hollow, Darkroot Garden, Crystal Cave, Royal Woods.
Dark Souls 2: Harvest Valley, The Gutter, Brightstone Cove Tseldora, Brume Tower (And in fact the entire DLC of Crown of the Old Iron King)
Dark Souls 3 (thus far): Smouldering Lake
Bloodborne (thus far): Hypogean Gaol
As a note, I'm only at the end of Carthus Catacombs in DS3, and the middle of the Forbidden Woods in Bloodborne.
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
Disliked areas, by game: Dark Souls: Sen's Fortress, The Great Hollow, Darkroot Garden, Crystal Cave, Royal Woods.
Yo what, Blighttown is easily the worst.
I didn't find it that bad, actually. Like, I know everyone seems to hate Blighttown, both the ramshackle buildings as well as the swamp below. But I had the Spider Shield to guard from toxic darts, blooming moss, purple moss, and I was already using some pyromancy, sorcery, and an INT-keyed claymore.
Sen's Fortress, meanwhile, was all traps and nasty monster set-ups. I died more there than anywhere else.
The Great Hollow was hell for me to get down because distance and range didn't really help because of the verticality.
Darkroot Garden was very open, and most of the things were either hiding or beefy; the Royal Woods was this plus pits all over the frigging place.
And I mean, the Crystal Cave is just annoying invisible paths, but more annoying, you had to run through the shitty place every time you wanted to give Seath another try.
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I wish there was a full game but with just a hundred levels of Sen's Fortress
Give me a single player dungeon crawl where you have a ton of abilities to detect and preemptively set off or disable traps. Maybe repurpose them to hit enemies. Then you have regular fantasy action combat and bosses and magical gear and stuff. And a town at the top where you sell stuff and learn lore. Basically a weird Illbleed/Souls/D&D/Let it Die/Persona mashup.
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
Speaking of traps, it feels odd to me that of all the kinds of spells that the Souls games have, none of them are "set a magical trap that goes off when an enemy walks over it". I mean, it's practically made for the set-up of teasing enemies into traps you've set. Like, Skyrim and Oblivion have them, and most D&D games do too, and they usually don't work that well, but the Souls games in specific seem to be begging to turn the tables if you prepare ahead of time.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
Disliked areas, by game:
Dark Souls: Sen's Fortress, The Great Hollow, Darkroot Garden, Crystal Cave, Royal Woods.
Dark Souls 2: Harvest Valley, The Gutter, Brightstone Cove Tseldora, Brume Tower (And in fact the entire DLC of Crown of the Old Iron King)
Dark Souls 3 (thus far): Smouldering Lake
Bloodborne (thus far): Hypogean Gaol
As a note, I'm only at the end of Carthus Catacombs in DS3, and the middle of the Forbidden Woods in Bloodborne.
Agreed on DS3, Smouldering Lake is the only bad area in the game IMO. Luckily it's 100% optional, not only in terms of having to do it in the first place but even if you decide to give the boss a go, you can just do the boss and skip everything else, without even having to do a frantic run-through. I think it's only "mandatory" if you want the pyromancy inside, and the "full" run to the very end is only really beneficial for getting a NG+ (or ++?) ring for the Platinum.
Speaking of traps, it feels odd to me that of all the kinds of spells that the Souls games have, none of them are "set a magical trap that goes off when an enemy walks over it". I mean, it's practically made for the set-up of teasing enemies into traps you've set. Like, Skyrim and Oblivion have them, and most D&D games do too, and they usually don't work that well, but the Souls games in specific seem to be begging to turn the tables if you prepare ahead of time.
I think this is intentional. Traps in video games typically devolve into a means of abusing poor AI. Souls doesn't really have AI so much as semi-random movesets and approach patterns, meticulously put together to create a very focused and specific level of challenge. Ranged weapon plunking and the various Mist spells already let you abuse these to the point where many areas of the games can be trivial if you've the patience for it. Traps would either make that even easier or be so low on damage that they're no better than the existing options.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
smouldering lake/profaned capital are both pretty bad DS3 areas.
completely half baked
DS1's shitty areas are your standard Demon Ruins, Great Hollow, Crystal Caverns. most of the rest of the game is pretty good, though the DLC areas and the forest are pretty eh.
I assume many of you guys are really good at Dark Souls type games so I have a question for you: Which one is the easiest to get into? I think I have the first one and Bloodborne. I feel like this kind of game COULD be my jam if I put time into it but I kinda want to start with the easiest.
I'd argue that Profaned Capital, despite the name block, isn't a full-fledged area but is rather a continuation of the previous area given the tiny size and lack of a boss fight in-between. This is also true for
Anor Londo, which is the "boss area" part of the extension of Irithyll post-Pontiff.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
probably DS1 is mechanically the easiest, but it's got its own kinds of jank to deal with. still, enemy movesets are a lot simpler and slower, and tank builds actually tank.
Probably the newest ones really. Lots of quality of life improvements. Bloodborne plays more like a standard action game than the rest. DS1 is probably the easiest to play and get powerful earlier on. Then every game after kinda assumes you were already able to beat the others.
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
Disliked areas, by game:
Dark Souls: Sen's Fortress, The Great Hollow, Darkroot Garden, Crystal Cave, Royal Woods.
Dark Souls 2: Harvest Valley, The Gutter, Brightstone Cove Tseldora, Brume Tower (And in fact the entire DLC of Crown of the Old Iron King)
Dark Souls 3 (thus far): Smouldering Lake
Bloodborne (thus far): Hypogean Gaol
As a note, I'm only at the end of Carthus Catacombs in DS3, and the middle of the Forbidden Woods in Bloodborne.
Agreed on DS3, Smouldering Lake is the only bad area in the game IMO. Luckily it's 100% optional, not only in terms of having to do it in the first place but even if you decide to give the boss a go, you can just do the boss and skip everything else, without even having to do a frantic run-through. I think it's only "mandatory" if you want the pyromancy inside, and the "full" run to the very end is only really beneficial for getting a NG+ (or ++?) ring for the Platinum.
Speaking of traps, it feels odd to me that of all the kinds of spells that the Souls games have, none of them are "set a magical trap that goes off when an enemy walks over it". I mean, it's practically made for the set-up of teasing enemies into traps you've set. Like, Skyrim and Oblivion have them, and most D&D games do too, and they usually don't work that well, but the Souls games in specific seem to be begging to turn the tables if you prepare ahead of time.
I think this is intentional. Traps in video games typically devolve into a means of abusing poor AI. Souls doesn't really have AI so much as semi-random movesets and approach patterns, meticulously put together to create a very focused and specific level of challenge. Ranged weapon plunking and the various Mist spells already let you abuse these to the point where many areas of the games can be trivial if you've the patience for it. Traps would either make that even easier or be so low on damage that they're no better than the existing options.
I'm glad that I have the Pyromancy from Smouldering Lake, but my biggest issues with the area are the wide open nothing of a lake with the ballista just peppering the ground with shots, but actually getting to the ballista to shut it down is a pain in the ass, and I died so many times to the shotel dudes or the basilisks or the black knight or the somewhat beefy pyro ghrus, and it's just a slog to actually get anywhere at all in the area.
I think I was thinking of traps set by a caster mainly because of the mist spells, the chaos fireball that leaves a pool of lava for a moment, and the black knights and such dudes that are just chunky and fast and you have no real offense against them other than to learn their moves or die. That they're used commonly as roadblocks with no way around them in DS3 thus far is annoying as hell, and it'd be nice to tease them into a nice magical explosion or something, just something to do a bit of damage to them or something, anything to maybe stagger the shitheads, and others like them.
I think mainly it's because it feels like I'm currently more disincentivized to use magic than even in DS2. Like, in the first two games getting at least a bit of distance and being able to pepper folks with spells was at least more tenable. Now it feels like a lot of enemies just go for "get up in your face", which I don't really enjoy as much.
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
I assume many of you guys are really good at Dark Souls type games so I have a question for you: Which one is the easiest to get into? I think I have the first one and Bloodborne. I feel like this kind of game COULD be my jam if I put time into it but I kinda want to start with the easiest.
I'd start with the first game, or probably the remaster, technically? Whatever, that's the one I'd start with mainly because it was the one I started with. The bad/bullshit areas are minimal, the bonfires are somewhat common but not exactly just roadmapped out . . . just take it slow. These aren't meant to be games that you rush through, in my opinion. And play to your strengths, don't feel bad about summoning help, or NPC help, or playing or not playing with guides or "cheap" tactics.
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I assume many of you guys are really good at Dark Souls type games so I have a question for you: Which one is the easiest to get into? I think I have the first one and Bloodborne. I feel like this kind of game COULD be my jam if I put time into it but I kinda want to start with the easiest.
Easiest is highly relative and depends substantially on what sort of thing you find most challenging about them.
In general I'd say DS3 is easiest. It has the fewest esoteric systems for making yourself better (Poise and Luck being the most bizarre), it's faster than the first two games but slower than Bloodborne (which hits a nice feel-good niche for a lot of people), and it has probably the easiest roll-dodge system of all of them. It also lacks the Fuck-You areas like Blighttown and Anor Londo from DS1 or Black Gulch and Shrine of Amana from DS2. Finally, it has instant bonfire teleporting from the very beginning, which makes exploration and grinding fast and rewarding.
But, a lot of it depends a whole bunch on which build you run in which game. There are builds that, from pretty early on, will annihilate the difficulty and let you cruise pretty readily through most of the content. But it's not the same set of builds in each game that can do this.
I'd say DS3 is probably the best for grinding, too, as another way of reducing challenge. Level-up costs feel like they scale pretty gently. It's also pretty easy to change up your character stats if you feel like you made a mistake.
Bloodborne is IMO the most difficult because of the limited build / gear options and high reflex requirements baked in. And grinding healing can be a real bastard.
Disliked areas, by game:
Dark Souls: Sen's Fortress, The Great Hollow, Darkroot Garden, Crystal Cave, Royal Woods.
Dark Souls 2: Harvest Valley, The Gutter, Brightstone Cove Tseldora, Brume Tower (And in fact the entire DLC of Crown of the Old Iron King)
Dark Souls 3 (thus far): Smouldering Lake
Bloodborne (thus far): Hypogean Gaol
As a note, I'm only at the end of Carthus Catacombs in DS3, and the middle of the Forbidden Woods in Bloodborne.
Agreed on DS3, Smouldering Lake is the only bad area in the game IMO. Luckily it's 100% optional, not only in terms of having to do it in the first place but even if you decide to give the boss a go, you can just do the boss and skip everything else, without even having to do a frantic run-through. I think it's only "mandatory" if you want the pyromancy inside, and the "full" run to the very end is only really beneficial for getting a NG+ (or ++?) ring for the Platinum.
Speaking of traps, it feels odd to me that of all the kinds of spells that the Souls games have, none of them are "set a magical trap that goes off when an enemy walks over it". I mean, it's practically made for the set-up of teasing enemies into traps you've set. Like, Skyrim and Oblivion have them, and most D&D games do too, and they usually don't work that well, but the Souls games in specific seem to be begging to turn the tables if you prepare ahead of time.
I think this is intentional. Traps in video games typically devolve into a means of abusing poor AI. Souls doesn't really have AI so much as semi-random movesets and approach patterns, meticulously put together to create a very focused and specific level of challenge. Ranged weapon plunking and the various Mist spells already let you abuse these to the point where many areas of the games can be trivial if you've the patience for it. Traps would either make that even easier or be so low on damage that they're no better than the existing options.
I'm glad that I have the Pyromancy from Smouldering Lake, but my biggest issues with the area are the wide open nothing of a lake with the ballista just peppering the ground with shots, but actually getting to the ballista to shut it down is a pain in the ass, and I died so many times to the shotel dudes or the basilisks or the black knight or the somewhat beefy pyro ghrus, and it's just a slog to actually get anywhere at all in the area.
I think I was thinking of traps set by a caster mainly because of the mist spells, the chaos fireball that leaves a pool of lava for a moment, and the black knights and such dudes that are just chunky and fast and you have no real offense against them other than to learn their moves or die. That they're used commonly as roadblocks with no way around them in DS3 thus far is annoying as hell, and it'd be nice to tease them into a nice magical explosion or something, just something to do a bit of damage to them or something, anything to maybe stagger the shitheads, and others like them.
I think mainly it's because it feels like I'm currently more disincentivized to use magic than even in DS2. Like, in the first two games getting at least a bit of distance and being able to pepper folks with spells was at least more tenable. Now it feels like a lot of enemies just go for "get up in your face", which I don't really enjoy as much.
Spells are often fire once, then melee (or switch to melee spells, which are pretty solid in this game). Fast spells like the Darts are another option. Or you could just Perseverance your way through the hits. You can usually get enemies to tether if you have to, and there's practically nothing in the game that you can't run + roll past.
Make sure your spellcasting speed is maxed out. It uses Dexterity and/or Sage's Rings, so check the wiki on those. If you need even faster, there are specific spell focuses that cast quickly but with less power.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
I assume many of you guys are really good at Dark Souls type games so I have a question for you: Which one is the easiest to get into? I think I have the first one and Bloodborne. I feel like this kind of game COULD be my jam if I put time into it but I kinda want to start with the easiest.
Either Demon's Souls (if you have a PS3) or Dark Souls: Remastered. You can turtle up behind a shield and they both have pretty good opening areas. Demon's Souls has the "pick the Royal class" option at the start of the game that makes it a cakewalk, and Dark Souls has the Drake Sword, which is very easy to get early in the game and which overpowers most of the opening areas before becoming absolutely useless about a third of the way through the game, at which point you are probably comfortable enough that you can ditch the training wheels.
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
Spells are often fire once, then melee (or switch to melee spells, which are pretty solid in this game). Fast spells like the Darts are another option. Or you could just Perseverance your way through the hits. You can usually get enemies to tether if you have to, and there's practically nothing in the game that you can't run + roll past.
Make sure your spellcasting speed is maxed out. It uses Dexterity and/or Sage's Rings, so check the wiki on those. If you need even faster, there are specific spell focuses that cast quickly but with less power.
I'll have to see how the melee spells do; my claymore is keyed off Int as usual, but usually the melee spells are just crap so I ignore them. It's not that I can't melee, it's just that I'm squishier than maybe most people are, and I'm bad at split-second dodging to the "correct" direction of an enemy's attack.
My biggest issue at the moment is that my current math is showing I'll be between level 130 and 150 when I'm all done, and that's only with adding 4 more levels to Dex (to get it to 18), so I'll have to see if using a ring to speed casting will work unless I want to do even more level grinding. Then again, those elder Ghru give 2640 souls if I wear both the silver ring and the symbol of avarice, so it's probably doable. I'm already at level 67 and I just beat Lord Wolnir.
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
I'll put in a pitch for "Start Pyromancer" on Dark Souls, as it's the best "jack of all trades" class so you can get a feel for melee and casting combat before making a decision, it starts at level 1 so your level up curve is less. It doesn't start with a great shield (65% block), but you can find the Caduceus Round Shield in the graveyard at Firelink (just don't figure on making out alive), and that shield has 85% block, and then in the Undead Burg there's the Wooden Shield with 93% block, or if you get lucky the Hollow Soldier Shield with 100% block that has a chance to drop off any sword-and-shield wielding hollow. Also the Heater Shield sold in the Undead Burg for 1000 souls, 100% block on that too. All these at least for physical.
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DS1 comes with a convenient easy mode available immediately when you start; if you have even the slightest ability to control spacing, the 2h r2 of the zweihander trivializes the entire game.
edit: DS1 also allows for the easy 'vig and end and nothing else' build because of strong elemental non-scaling weapons, pyromancy scaling with nothing, and END being split into two stats in later games. If you walk into endgame already approaching 50 vit, 40 end, with heavy armor on and a fat lightning weapon in one hand and ascended flame in the other, you'll never understand why people struggle with those fights.
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
I mean, be it from the Zwei or spells, or what-have-you, it does feel like DS is easier to "break" if you need to.
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So, the biggest mishmash of nonsense--not necessarily the most difficult or frustrating, just the dumbest--has to be right outside of Ornifex's room in DS2, right?
Spiders coming after you, wizards shooting beams at you, a red phantom with dual avelyns, one of those self-destructing lizards on a narrow walkway to one of those wizards, a big floor hazard you have to skirt around.
It's goofy.
edit: And a basilisk pops out of the ground, I forgot that one.
Kamar on
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NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
Don't forget that Forlorn
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
I'm not sure I've ever died to the Guardian Dragon before.
Now I've died to it three times in a row.
edit: Oh right, you just ignore what it's doing and keep running at it and swinging, except if you need do switch to the other leg for stomps.
I had to look up that boss because apparently he is just that forgettable. Then I remembered that you fight him again like three or four times unless you take the zip line they added with the Scholar edition.
Agreed on DS3, Smouldering Lake is the only bad area in the game IMO. Luckily it's 100% optional, not only in terms of having to do it in the first place but even if you decide to give the boss a go, you can just do the boss and skip everything else, without even having to do a frantic run-through. I think it's only "mandatory" if you want the pyromancy inside, and the "full" run to the very end is only really beneficial for getting a NG+ (or ++?) ring for the Platinum.
It's a pretty terrible area indeed, but I actually enjoy going down there and clearing it out, because eventually I manage to work my way up to the top and take all my frustration out on the couple of mooks next to the ballista. And then you get to turn that insane, cursed machine off. And it's always a glorious moment. They should have programmed it so that when you hit the switch the fucking thing collapses in on itself.
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
Agreed on DS3, Smouldering Lake is the only bad area in the game IMO. Luckily it's 100% optional, not only in terms of having to do it in the first place but even if you decide to give the boss a go, you can just do the boss and skip everything else, without even having to do a frantic run-through. I think it's only "mandatory" if you want the pyromancy inside, and the "full" run to the very end is only really beneficial for getting a NG+ (or ++?) ring for the Platinum.
It's a pretty terrible area indeed, but I actually enjoy going down there and clearing it out, because eventually I manage to work my way up to the top and take all my frustration out on the couple of mooks next to the ballista. And then you get to turn that insane, cursed machine off. And it's always a glorious moment. They should have programmed it so that when you hit the switch the fucking thing collapses in on itself.
Annoyingly enough, I kept dying to those shotel-wielding jackasses near the ballista.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
Agreed on DS3, Smouldering Lake is the only bad area in the game IMO. Luckily it's 100% optional, not only in terms of having to do it in the first place but even if you decide to give the boss a go, you can just do the boss and skip everything else, without even having to do a frantic run-through. I think it's only "mandatory" if you want the pyromancy inside, and the "full" run to the very end is only really beneficial for getting a NG+ (or ++?) ring for the Platinum.
It's a pretty terrible area indeed, but I actually enjoy going down there and clearing it out, because eventually I manage to work my way up to the top and take all my frustration out on the couple of mooks next to the ballista. And then you get to turn that insane, cursed machine off. And it's always a glorious moment. They should have programmed it so that when you hit the switch the fucking thing collapses in on itself.
Annoyingly enough, I kept dying to those shotel-wielding jackasses near the ballista.
The red eyed version of the spin to win mother fuckers are the worst.
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It's a lot better without the framerate dips.
I don't hate the Gulch, but it's a little excessive in a way that can make it tedious if you don't know the tricks. It's blessedly short as well.
Dark Souls: Sen's Fortress, The Great Hollow, Darkroot Garden, Crystal Cave, Royal Woods.
Dark Souls 2: Harvest Valley, The Gutter, Brightstone Cove Tseldora, Brume Tower (And in fact the entire DLC of Crown of the Old Iron King)
Dark Souls 3 (thus far): Smouldering Lake
Bloodborne (thus far): Hypogean Gaol
As a note, I'm only at the end of Carthus Catacombs in DS3, and the middle of the Forbidden Woods in Bloodborne.
Yo what, Blighttown is easily the worst.
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I didn't find it that bad, actually. Like, I know everyone seems to hate Blighttown, both the ramshackle buildings as well as the swamp below. But I had the Spider Shield to guard from toxic darts, blooming moss, purple moss, and I was already using some pyromancy, sorcery, and an INT-keyed claymore.
Sen's Fortress, meanwhile, was all traps and nasty monster set-ups. I died more there than anywhere else.
The Great Hollow was hell for me to get down because distance and range didn't really help because of the verticality.
Darkroot Garden was very open, and most of the things were either hiding or beefy; the Royal Woods was this plus pits all over the frigging place.
And I mean, the Crystal Cave is just annoying invisible paths, but more annoying, you had to run through the shitty place every time you wanted to give Seath another try.
Give me a single player dungeon crawl where you have a ton of abilities to detect and preemptively set off or disable traps. Maybe repurpose them to hit enemies. Then you have regular fantasy action combat and bosses and magical gear and stuff. And a town at the top where you sell stuff and learn lore. Basically a weird Illbleed/Souls/D&D/Let it Die/Persona mashup.
Isn't it called Spelunky?
literally chalice dungeons
I think this is intentional. Traps in video games typically devolve into a means of abusing poor AI. Souls doesn't really have AI so much as semi-random movesets and approach patterns, meticulously put together to create a very focused and specific level of challenge. Ranged weapon plunking and the various Mist spells already let you abuse these to the point where many areas of the games can be trivial if you've the patience for it. Traps would either make that even easier or be so low on damage that they're no better than the existing options.
completely half baked
DS1's shitty areas are your standard Demon Ruins, Great Hollow, Crystal Caverns. most of the rest of the game is pretty good, though the DLC areas and the forest are pretty eh.
I'm glad that I have the Pyromancy from Smouldering Lake, but my biggest issues with the area are the wide open nothing of a lake with the ballista just peppering the ground with shots, but actually getting to the ballista to shut it down is a pain in the ass, and I died so many times to the shotel dudes or the basilisks or the black knight or the somewhat beefy pyro ghrus, and it's just a slog to actually get anywhere at all in the area.
I think I was thinking of traps set by a caster mainly because of the mist spells, the chaos fireball that leaves a pool of lava for a moment, and the black knights and such dudes that are just chunky and fast and you have no real offense against them other than to learn their moves or die. That they're used commonly as roadblocks with no way around them in DS3 thus far is annoying as hell, and it'd be nice to tease them into a nice magical explosion or something, just something to do a bit of damage to them or something, anything to maybe stagger the shitheads, and others like them.
I think mainly it's because it feels like I'm currently more disincentivized to use magic than even in DS2. Like, in the first two games getting at least a bit of distance and being able to pepper folks with spells was at least more tenable. Now it feels like a lot of enemies just go for "get up in your face", which I don't really enjoy as much.
I'd start with the first game, or probably the remaster, technically? Whatever, that's the one I'd start with mainly because it was the one I started with. The bad/bullshit areas are minimal, the bonfires are somewhat common but not exactly just roadmapped out . . . just take it slow. These aren't meant to be games that you rush through, in my opinion. And play to your strengths, don't feel bad about summoning help, or NPC help, or playing or not playing with guides or "cheap" tactics.
In general I'd say DS3 is easiest. It has the fewest esoteric systems for making yourself better (Poise and Luck being the most bizarre), it's faster than the first two games but slower than Bloodborne (which hits a nice feel-good niche for a lot of people), and it has probably the easiest roll-dodge system of all of them. It also lacks the Fuck-You areas like Blighttown and Anor Londo from DS1 or Black Gulch and Shrine of Amana from DS2. Finally, it has instant bonfire teleporting from the very beginning, which makes exploration and grinding fast and rewarding.
But, a lot of it depends a whole bunch on which build you run in which game. There are builds that, from pretty early on, will annihilate the difficulty and let you cruise pretty readily through most of the content. But it's not the same set of builds in each game that can do this.
I'd say DS3 is probably the best for grinding, too, as another way of reducing challenge. Level-up costs feel like they scale pretty gently. It's also pretty easy to change up your character stats if you feel like you made a mistake.
Bloodborne is IMO the most difficult because of the limited build / gear options and high reflex requirements baked in. And grinding healing can be a real bastard.
Spells are often fire once, then melee (or switch to melee spells, which are pretty solid in this game). Fast spells like the Darts are another option. Or you could just Perseverance your way through the hits. You can usually get enemies to tether if you have to, and there's practically nothing in the game that you can't run + roll past.
Make sure your spellcasting speed is maxed out. It uses Dexterity and/or Sage's Rings, so check the wiki on those. If you need even faster, there are specific spell focuses that cast quickly but with less power.
it also punishes mistakes pretty hard.
Either Demon's Souls (if you have a PS3) or Dark Souls: Remastered. You can turtle up behind a shield and they both have pretty good opening areas. Demon's Souls has the "pick the Royal class" option at the start of the game that makes it a cakewalk, and Dark Souls has the Drake Sword, which is very easy to get early in the game and which overpowers most of the opening areas before becoming absolutely useless about a third of the way through the game, at which point you are probably comfortable enough that you can ditch the training wheels.
I'll have to see how the melee spells do; my claymore is keyed off Int as usual, but usually the melee spells are just crap so I ignore them. It's not that I can't melee, it's just that I'm squishier than maybe most people are, and I'm bad at split-second dodging to the "correct" direction of an enemy's attack.
My biggest issue at the moment is that my current math is showing I'll be between level 130 and 150 when I'm all done, and that's only with adding 4 more levels to Dex (to get it to 18), so I'll have to see if using a ring to speed casting will work unless I want to do even more level grinding. Then again, those elder Ghru give 2640 souls if I wear both the silver ring and the symbol of avarice, so it's probably doable. I'm already at level 67 and I just beat Lord Wolnir.
edit: DS1 also allows for the easy 'vig and end and nothing else' build because of strong elemental non-scaling weapons, pyromancy scaling with nothing, and END being split into two stats in later games. If you walk into endgame already approaching 50 vit, 40 end, with heavy armor on and a fat lightning weapon in one hand and ascended flame in the other, you'll never understand why people struggle with those fights.
Spiders coming after you, wizards shooting beams at you, a red phantom with dual avelyns, one of those self-destructing lizards on a narrow walkway to one of those wizards, a big floor hazard you have to skirt around.
It's goofy.
edit: And a basilisk pops out of the ground, I forgot that one.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
I'm not sure I've ever died to the Guardian Dragon before.
Now I've died to it three times in a row.
edit: Oh right, you just ignore what it's doing and keep running at it and swinging, except if you need do switch to the other leg for stomps.
I had to look up that boss because apparently he is just that forgettable. Then I remembered that you fight him again like three or four times unless you take the zip line they added with the Scholar edition.
I always take the zip line.
Wonder if I can manage it without losing my mind?
edit: got it on my second try, huh
It's a pretty terrible area indeed, but I actually enjoy going down there and clearing it out, because eventually I manage to work my way up to the top and take all my frustration out on the couple of mooks next to the ballista. And then you get to turn that insane, cursed machine off. And it's always a glorious moment. They should have programmed it so that when you hit the switch the fucking thing collapses in on itself.
Annoyingly enough, I kept dying to those shotel-wielding jackasses near the ballista.
The red eyed version of the spin to win mother fuckers are the worst.