The problem with the Freida fight is that the first phase is fairly easy so it quickly becomes tedious after the 10th time doing it. The second phase has two combatants and their interaction can make the difficulty vary wildly depending on how they interact. This makes it kind of a dice roll whether you can make it to the 3rd phase. Even when you do you may not be in any shape to fight in it. Because of the limited times (often with limited health) you have with phase 3 it takes a long time to get an understanding of her moves and how you can counter them. The individual phases are fine but the whole fight together is just frustrating.
The trigger for me bringing up Sekiro was the requiring different tactics for each phase and always restarting at phase 1 comment. That is totally the Sekiro formula. The biggest difference for me though is that the boss fights in Sekiro, though extremely difficult, are fair with one exception. All but Demon of Hatred have at least one ideal counter to every attack of every phase without the environment fucking you. Many of them also have some sort of shortcut to exploit and pulling that off is very satisfying.
While this doesn't really dispute what you're saying, my point is that Sekiro Life Pips aren't really independent life bars, they're functionally just the visible representation of each boss' phases. And bosses of most action games, and especially FromSoft Soulsborne games, tend to have behavioral progression that demand a change of tactics.
However, I definitely agree that Freide fight is problematic in this regard because it's a lot like three consecutive boss fights, each with their own staged structures.
And that's a fight structure that really only exists at the terminal points of Sekiro — and I think Sekiro is great, so it bums me out to think someone would skip it because they believe the boss fights are akin to dealing with Freide repeatedly.
Fights can be bad for many different reasons. Bed of chaos is bad because it's janky and gimmicky. Fume Knight is bad because it's unbalanced and resistant to basically everything a player is likely to have been using up to that point.
And Freide is bad because it's a three phase boss fight that requires different tactics in each one and you have to start over at phase one each time, making it take so much longer to learn the patterns. It also has a demoralizing effect from "emptied this health bar? Here's another full one to deal with." And it does that twice.
Plus it inherits the overall Dark Souls 3 problem of having Bloodborne enemies but a Dark Souls player character. Everything wants you to be faster to deal with it but you're still plotzing along at a slower pace.
If you haven't played it, this is 2/3 of bosses in Sekiro
Ah, glad I've stayed away then.
Even better, some of these bosses have optional or extra fights that add extra and enhanced movesets!
Personally, Sekiro's bossfights are designed vastly better to me than the bulk of Soulsborne boss fights. Soulsborne bosses usually look pretty impressive, then just pile on attacks that are either absurdly fast, ridiculously huge, or both, with the vast majority of those attacks being immune to parrying. Even the enemies near or at the player's size habitually get to break the rules of humanoid enemies and still generally get enhanced stats over players using the same gear. Then there's the array of boss-specific spells or projectiles that can annihilate the player easily on a screwup, whereas a player usually has to have some special focus to do real ranged damage. And don't forget that some bosses sport an aggravating gimmick of some kind, just to make it extra-clear that you're supposed to be irritated instead of confident.
But in Sekiro, few enemies get the crutch of absurd size and virtually everything can be parried unless it is specifically a type of attack that is meant to not be parried (thrust attacks cannot be parried, but they still have a specific counter). Even enemies with big attacks almost never get to outright ignore the rules of combat; the final boss of the game has a couple phases with massive attack ranges, but they still work like attacks and can 100% be parried. Once you've solidly got down an enemy moveset, they're fucked; they will not be overwhelm your ability to parry them, and fights that seemed impossible the first time can end up taking less than a minute after you master them.
And I definitely have to argue against that Sekiro has you fighting Bloodborne enemies while you move/fight at Dark Souls speed. The player in Sekiro is highly mobile and there's basically no limit to running and dashing, the difference is that you have to actually face down the enemy with parrying and counters instead of trying to just roll or block past everything. Only a few human enemies can really attack faster than you depending on the attacks you choose, and anything nasty has a tell that can be learned and used to counter.
Overall, I feel like Sekiro is designed far more about learning encounters and the Soulsborne games are mostly about trying to find the best, easiest way to break encounters. I like Sekiro fights because of the lack of bullshit, but I tolerate Soulsborne boss fights because of getting to experience everything else. Even the fastest technique in Sekiro can be reasonably timed, parried, and countered, turning a tough enemy into a fight that lasts literally seconds.
Though do keep in mind they're two completely different breeds of game, with a different focus in mind.
Sekiro is everything I hate about Souls games laser focused in on and turned up to 11. That's why I never touched it, I know I would hate it.
It and Dark Souls 3 being the last two games they made makes me leery about whatever they are doing next.
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
I also prefer the Sekiro fights but I did find them harder than SoulsBorne. SB you can typically get around the difficulty with a little over leveling and some dodge spam but Sekiro doesn't have typical levels and you have to stand your ground most of the time.
After dying a trillion times to Butterfly the only other boss that ever felt exceptionally hard in Sekiro was the other (optional) one you fight in that arena. That guy was like head and shoulders above anything else in the game.
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
Friede has a lot of commonality in her moves across the 3 phases. Her moveset is largely the same in part 2, with the second combatant feeling a lot like an environmental hazard with a huge flashing weak point.
Even phase 3 has a bunch in common with the timing and patterns of her moves. It's just faster, tighter, and there's a real mean double combo.
Weirdly, I've run builds that had more trouble with Phase 1 than the others.
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Does anyone here use mouse and keyboard for DS1? I've heard the remastered version made that an actual possibility. I have friend who has some interest in the game but he's hopeless with controllers.
Sekiro is everything I hate about Souls games laser focused in on and turned up to 11. That's why I never touched it, I know I would hate it.
It and Dark Souls 3 being the last two games they made makes me leery about whatever they are doing next.
I love all of the Dark Souls games and have finished each of them multiple times, but I hesitated about getting Sekiro and quit it after 17 hours once I did. I was just so fucking tired of every boss being a struggle. The skills I gained didn't seem to transfer to the next battle, I didn't feel like I was progressing, it was just an exhausting grind of ever-changing quick-time events.
Edit: Having thought about it, I think part of my problem with the game might have to do with me having ADD. One of the common traits of ADHD/ADD is reduced speed and accuracy of reactions. I even had to take a test as part of my evaluation that was essentially a long quick-time event. The fact that Sekiro relies so heavily on this mechanic probably plays a large part in making it both difficult and exhausting for (some) people on the ADHD spectra.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I loved the fact that every enemy was actually unique, to the point that there are some enemies that were taught by other enemies and it stands out like very clearly in their fighting styles. Even the rare large enemy ended up feeling improved to me, because they still followed most of the combat rules (every boss is subject to Posture limitations, for instance, and every single boss can have their Posture broken with parrying correctly). I probably died a couple hundred times on my first run through the game, and I died I think four times on my second playthrough. Your ability to wreck enemies comes far more from learning than from stat grinding.
For most Soulsborne fights, the fight rundown is basically "find out the ridiculous unstoppable attacks that are X times bigger/stronger/faster than what the player can ever do" followed up by "exploit the enemy gimmick". If it's a real struggle, grind up more or find out that the enemy has some random secret. The fights look impressive as anything with a great soundtrack to them, but the bulk of them, outside a handful of the humanoid fights that actually follow most of the combat rules, just feel lazily designed to me.
But it's also largely why I say the two just aren't directly comparable. You can like Soulsborne games and hate Sekiro, love Sekiro and hate Soulsborne game, or love or hate both of them. The design difference, and not just in the gameplay, is much too big to fairly stick them in the same category for comparison.
Someone just needs to steal the parry indicator thing from The Surge 2 because goddamn if that one addition didn't make me completely alter my playstyle away from turtling and rolling.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Yeah, the Surge 2 was pretty bland and uninteresting, but that Parry indicator was a big help for cutting the bullshit. Really did help bridge the gap between Sekiro's approach of extremely limited weaponry for limited combos to learn and Soulsborne style of having several different weapons to choose from (though the Surge 2 weapon selection was pretty thin).
My big gripe about the parry indicator is that it was NOT properly synced up with faster attacks, making it almost useless against many boss attacks because you'd get the warning for the first parry and then start taking hits from the followup attacks where the parry indicator hadn't caught up yet. And if you still tried to parry after learning the combo, your timing would usually be off at some point.
Even if the timing was sometimes off, just the indicator that an attack was coming and yes I actually can parry it made me try to parry it. Even on bosses. Even if I beefed it and ate shit getting smacked in the face a lot of the time. It made me try and that was a huge quality of life thing for getting the most out of its gameplay.
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
Yeah, I feel like the swiftness of Dark Souls 3 was less about being more like Bloodborne and more about trying to force folks to turtle less, and I say that specifically because my class in all Dark Souls is jack-of-all-trades spell-and-shield turtle man. Like, I'd take the best shield(s) I could find, especially in the first one, and just . . . block. I only rolled if the game legit forced me to. And then Dark Souls 2 not just forced me to unturtle a bit, but to actively learn to roll. And Dark Souls 3 felt like a progression on that, but also on parrying; I've parried more in that than any other Dark Souls game. And that I do blame on Bloodborne, since it wasn't block, it was dodge or parry only. I haven't beaten Bloodborne (I like it, but it's on the only TV, i.e. the livingroom TV, and it's not 3 year old appropriate), but every time I go back to it I need about an hour to get used to not being able to "defend" myself with a block, and learning to react to the enemies instead of playing super defensively. I don't exactly like that mode of play, but I can get really good at it once I force myself to.
I'm at the frozen city in Dark Souls 3, the swamp-forest in Bloodborne, and the second area in The Surge, and I've decided that these games, man they just take some time investment for me to get into playing a session. Like, I need about 3-4 hours because that first half hour to an hour is just me relearning how not to suck. And most times I don't get that time with a kiddo in the house. But there's a certain flavor to all of them that niggles at the back of my "well then fuck you" reaction in my brain that I actually enjoy. I guess what I'm saying is I'm sad I don't get more of a chance to at least choose when I get to play them, because even if they are way outside my usual comfort level, there's an element of figuring out these games that really jives with me.
And that said, I think I've written off Sekiro; I've never played it, I don't really want to, I'm just not interested in the mechanics enough to want to experience the story through them.
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Does anyone here use mouse and keyboard for DS1? I've heard the remastered version made that an actual possibility. I have friend who has some interest in the game but he's hopeless with controllers.
I beat it with KBAM in both remaster and the original pc release. It was easier in the Remaster because of smooth frame rate and better snappier controls. It's leagues above the original port which is garbage without Durantes fixes for the mouse and even then it's really sluggish. It has a lot of input lag and sometimes just doesn't respond. Skip it and get the Remaster.
Movement isn't going to be as smooth as with a controller but it's pretty similar to some other 3rd person games on PC. You might have to rebind some actions to a mouse side button but that's about it.
Other than the original port of DS1 Sekiro is the only From Souls like game I really struggled with due to the KBAM controls. That's why it's unfinished. Couldn't even beat Gyoubu.
From games feel unpleasant with KBAM to me, something about the way the camera moves when you're using a mouse bothers me. Like it doesn't expect you to move it that way or something. Not that they're the only ones.
Maybe there's a setting I could tweak or a high enough frame rate/monitor refresh would fix it for me?
edit: DS1 on PC is what actually convinced me that maybe KBAM wasn't strictly superior for 3D games 100% of the time.
I really liked the Friede and Fume Knight boss fights. Difficult, demanding battles that demand patience and concentration., excet for the second phase of the Friede fight where you hope the NPC keeps Friede busy while you whale frantically at her dad trying to kill him before she remembers you're there.
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edited March 2020
For me Sekiro was inherently learnable in all instances even though it was probably the hardest shit I've ever put up with in a game. I liked it vastly more than DS3 where all bosses seemed like totally random bullshit - no doubt people learn DS3 fights and get better at them but I don't see how.
Sekiro for me always felt super simple and clear in how I should do better.
Sekiro does give you more tools and mobility for fights compared to classic soul games but it might put off players who tries to bash through the early bosses with sheer willpower instead of those types who goes around exploring finding secrets and useful stuff
For me Sekiro was inherently learnable in all instances even though it was probably the hardest shit I've ever put up with in a game. I liked it vastly more than DS3 where all bosses seemed like totally random bullshit - no doubt people learn DS3 fights and get better at them but I don't see how.
Sekiro for me always felt super simple and clear in how I should do better.
I felt the opposite with Sekiro for a long time, and it still feels like it has more rhythm game DNA where you have to learn individual encounters rather than just 'how to play', but it feels better deeper in since you at least learn the tools enough to pick up those encounters relatively quick, outside of a few 'Gotcha this encounter kills you for doing that unlike every other encounter!' things.
Thing is, unlike DS2 which was also a miserable slog I hate-played for most of my first run, Sekiro has no replay value, so it can't become my favorite game via Stockholm Syndrome the way DS2 did for a long time.
DS3, on the other hand, I felt like I'd adapted to pretty early, because it's quick but everything still has clear tells and is easily rolled with the badass roll you have.
...to be honest I think Nioh without LW or equivalent cheese strats is harder than any of them. Same for Code Vein without a partner or one-shot stacks.
Though I guess that's like saying DS2 is the hardest because if you do it at SL1 you finish up BIK with PTSD.
Yeah, Dark Souls allows you to scale your damage enough without damage stats that you can pretty much play 'easy mode' by investing exclusively in health and stamina and maybe equipment weight.
You just build so that you can survive anything long enough to drink estus and hit hard enough with a big dumb armor and a big dumb twohanded hyper-armor weapon so that even if you get bounced across the boss arena on every swing, you finish before you run out of estus.
Descendant XSkyrim is my god now.Outpost 31Registered Userregular
I thought Elden Ring was coming out this year?
Garry: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time I'd rather not spend the rest of the winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
The initial release date is June 2020 for Elden Ring, but considering the pandemic, that date may or may not hold.
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Yeah, Dark Souls allows you to scale your damage enough without damage stats that you can pretty much play 'easy mode' by investing exclusively in health and stamina and maybe equipment weight.
You just build so that you can survive anything long enough to drink estus and hit hard enough with a big dumb armor and a big dumb twohanded hyper-armor weapon so that even if you get bounced across the boss arena on every swing, you finish before you run out of estus.
Ah yes, the Peach Saliva strategy.
DS2's weapon aiming feature is doing her no favors.
i figured maybe launch with new consoles in fall but who knows now
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
At this point I think new consoles this year is unlikely. Sony already appears behind schedule and I see no way covid isn't drastically affecting materials supply.
The initial release date is June 2020 for Elden Ring, but considering the pandemic, that date may or may not hold.
I don't remember a release date ever being announced. Do you have a link?
When I looked up "Elden Ring release date" on Google, it came up with that date, with this article mentioning that "Currently Target has a release date of June 30th, 2020". That's as good as we've got thus far.
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For me Sekiro was inherently learnable in all instances even though it was probably the hardest shit I've ever put up with in a game. I liked it vastly more than DS3 where all bosses seemed like totally random bullshit - no doubt people learn DS3 fights and get better at them but I don't see how.
Sekiro for me always felt super simple and clear in how I should do better.
It's also pretty clear that the design philosophy for the gameplay is supposed to emulate actual dueling. If an enemy attacks with strong attack X, you counter with quick attack Y. If the enemy goes for a thrust, you disrupt the attack to throw them off balance and exploit the opening. It's a combat system of move/countermove, instead of a combat a system that spams huge attacks or high damage.
And one of my favorite things about the game is that combat looks better as you get better at it. You don't straight-up explode enemies by knowing their weak points or having overleveled stats/weapons, but you control the combat to the extent that the player looks awesome while they take apart the enemy without getting touched.
So, it's been nearly 4 years since I gave up on trying to farm the covenant items offline to finish the 100% achievements in Dark Souls 3. About a month ago I finally picked DkS3 back up again and did it, though apparently patches had changed quite a bit of stuff. My Hollow/Luck Bleed build character isn't nearly as effective anymore, so I tried out some other weapons, but I did keep using that character for the farming. And apparently Poise actually works in a consistent manner now? Neat. I still didn't have the DLCs at the time and I had stayed in NG to do the farming so I still only had the +0 Gold Serpent ring. It took a while to be sure, and the Proofs were by *far* the worst one to farm... second worst were the Vertabrae Shackles.
With the covenant stuff done, I continued on into NG+ finally and switched over to a Hollow Exile Greatsword and absolutely destroyed it, picking up the +1 rings before heading into NG++ where I switched to Vordt's Great Hammer. That thing is pretty damn good and made short work of NG++ to finish getting the +2 rings and finally getting 100% achievements on the only Souls game I've played that I hadn't gotten 100% on yet.
Shortly after doing that, GreenManGaming had a pretty good deal on the season pass, so I grabbed it, but I didn't want to first hop into the DLC with my NG++ character, so I started a pure Pyromancer. It honestly went pretty great through the whole normal game and the Painted World. Spoiler for comments on Sister Friede fight:
I think she took me 5 or 6 tries, and I didn't use summons for the fight. Phase 2 I just ignored Ariandel and focused on her. Great Chaos Fire Orb just kind of stuns the hell out of her the whole time, it's just that it's *such* a long fight. Really neat fight to be sure, but really long.
I started The Ringed City, the angel things in the swamp area were a massive pain in the ass. Probably the worst part was the pyromancer hostile NPC though, because she just dodges *every* spell you throw at her. Gah.
Then I got to the first boss in the Ringed City...
At first I tried using Gael and Lapp for the fight, but considering the demons are very resistant to fire and fairly resistant to dark, the amount of health they get was just making it *ridiculously* slow, especially on the Demon Prince himself. So I switched to just using Lapp.
I don't remember how many tries it took in total, maybe 10 or so, but I did eventually get the Demon Prince down. Certainly not my favorite as a pure Pyro, that's for sure.
Then into the Ringed City proper... I hate the giants that summon the phantom archers, but the fact that they *respawn* is the absolute dumbest thing they could've done. I fought my way through the Ringed City with my pure Pyro for a while and I got to the point where Midir is sitting up on a cliff to harrass you with fire breaths, but I ended up stopping there when I peeked ahead at resistances and found out both Midir and Gael are highly fire *and* dark resistant. I didn't think I wanted my learning attempts at them to be with my pure Pyro, so I ended up getting sidetracked into a bit of a rabbit hole of making new character builds.
First up, I made a Dex character using the Brigand Twindaggers, which was interesting and a different playstyle. However, I got to Grand Archives, so pretty late game and realized the AR difference between 40 Dex and the minimum 18 Dex for the Sharp twindaggers was 250 versus 220. 30 AR didn't seem like it was worth the points... so I restarted the character last night, intending to go for a weapon buff build, which is probably what I should've done originally. It necessitated a restart because there was no way of getting Dark Blade since I had never done the Yoel/Yuria stuff. So the plan is to go for minimum stats for the Twindaggers and then get 18 Int and 60 Faith and use the miracle weapon buffs depending on boss weaknesses. I started a Deprived for it this time because I wanted to see if I could completely minimize the expense of having the Dark Sigils cured... so yeah, I didn't level up at all until after I had gotten my 5 'free' levels from Yoel, saved up 20k souls to buy the shrine tower key to get the Firekeeper's soul, and another 4k souls to permanently remove the Dark Sigils.
I wasn't sure if Yuria would permanently leave after I cured them, and in case I wanted any of her other stuff later, I decided I'd kill her to give her ashes to the handmaiden... being at level 6 with no upgraded weapons. It was an absolute pain in the dick but I eventually killed her. So I am looking forward to see how that run goes.
I made two strength characters, one specializing in Vordt's Great Hammer and another specializing in the Greatsword UGS. I've gotten them both pretty far through the game at this point and honestly, I think the Great Hammers are much better than the Greatsword. I'm not entirely sure just what all plays into that, I know the Great Hammer can stagger slightly easier than the Greatsword, which definitely makes things like the Harald Knights in the Ringed City much easier to deal with. And the improved Frostbite making it easy to get that percentage damage in there is really nice. I even took the Vordt's character into the first boss in Ringed City with no phantom help:
It took me a few tries to get a good idea of how to handle the double demons while being the only target, but once I got it down, I kind of just destroyed them with the Great Hammer.
Neither of these characters have gone into Ariandel just yet, I wanted to get the melee-focused +3 rings from the Ringed City before I continued with the rest of the game and DLC 1.
And finally, I made a bow only character, which I originally did a run of in Dark Souls Remastered, and then tried continuing into Dark Souls 2. Bow Only was super fun and easy in 1, in 2 it was very awkward to say the least... I still haven't actually finished that run yet. In 3, it's feeling alright. I'm using the composite bow and the rolling quick-shot is really good so far, even though it does a little less damage. I think it'll improve once I can eventually get the Leo Ring. Right now he's only just entering the Cathedral of the Deep, so it'll be a while, depending on when I end up getting back to him.
So yes, I'm not done with the Ringed City DLC yet, but I've been playing a lot of Dark Souls 3 lately. It's felt pretty good. Though I'm trying not to think about how ideally I probably want to get Darkmoon Blade on the twindaggers character... ugh.
Dark Souls Dissected #10 - Out of Bounds Exploration56:32 https://youtu.be/YYjMgHaml04 Another Dark Souls Dissected, my longest video yet! This one is intended as a follow-up to my Lordran's Layout video, but focusing this time on out of bounds content.
The tight design of Lordran with everything connected and cohesive is something I feel the later games failed to deliver on (esp 2).
I mean, what I've seen from Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, and even Bloodborne tends to make me think that the cohesive nature of Dark Souls' world design is actually the anomaly.
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While this doesn't really dispute what you're saying, my point is that Sekiro Life Pips aren't really independent life bars, they're functionally just the visible representation of each boss' phases. And bosses of most action games, and especially FromSoft Soulsborne games, tend to have behavioral progression that demand a change of tactics.
However, I definitely agree that Freide fight is problematic in this regard because it's a lot like three consecutive boss fights, each with their own staged structures.
And that's a fight structure that really only exists at the terminal points of Sekiro — and I think Sekiro is great, so it bums me out to think someone would skip it because they believe the boss fights are akin to dealing with Freide repeatedly.
Even better, some of these bosses have optional or extra fights that add extra and enhanced movesets!
Personally, Sekiro's bossfights are designed vastly better to me than the bulk of Soulsborne boss fights. Soulsborne bosses usually look pretty impressive, then just pile on attacks that are either absurdly fast, ridiculously huge, or both, with the vast majority of those attacks being immune to parrying. Even the enemies near or at the player's size habitually get to break the rules of humanoid enemies and still generally get enhanced stats over players using the same gear. Then there's the array of boss-specific spells or projectiles that can annihilate the player easily on a screwup, whereas a player usually has to have some special focus to do real ranged damage. And don't forget that some bosses sport an aggravating gimmick of some kind, just to make it extra-clear that you're supposed to be irritated instead of confident.
But in Sekiro, few enemies get the crutch of absurd size and virtually everything can be parried unless it is specifically a type of attack that is meant to not be parried (thrust attacks cannot be parried, but they still have a specific counter). Even enemies with big attacks almost never get to outright ignore the rules of combat; the final boss of the game has a couple phases with massive attack ranges, but they still work like attacks and can 100% be parried. Once you've solidly got down an enemy moveset, they're fucked; they will not be overwhelm your ability to parry them, and fights that seemed impossible the first time can end up taking less than a minute after you master them.
And I definitely have to argue against that Sekiro has you fighting Bloodborne enemies while you move/fight at Dark Souls speed. The player in Sekiro is highly mobile and there's basically no limit to running and dashing, the difference is that you have to actually face down the enemy with parrying and counters instead of trying to just roll or block past everything. Only a few human enemies can really attack faster than you depending on the attacks you choose, and anything nasty has a tell that can be learned and used to counter.
Overall, I feel like Sekiro is designed far more about learning encounters and the Soulsborne games are mostly about trying to find the best, easiest way to break encounters. I like Sekiro fights because of the lack of bullshit, but I tolerate Soulsborne boss fights because of getting to experience everything else. Even the fastest technique in Sekiro can be reasonably timed, parried, and countered, turning a tough enemy into a fight that lasts literally seconds.
Though do keep in mind they're two completely different breeds of game, with a different focus in mind.
It and Dark Souls 3 being the last two games they made makes me leery about whatever they are doing next.
Even phase 3 has a bunch in common with the timing and patterns of her moves. It's just faster, tighter, and there's a real mean double combo.
Weirdly, I've run builds that had more trouble with Phase 1 than the others.
I love all of the Dark Souls games and have finished each of them multiple times, but I hesitated about getting Sekiro and quit it after 17 hours once I did. I was just so fucking tired of every boss being a struggle. The skills I gained didn't seem to transfer to the next battle, I didn't feel like I was progressing, it was just an exhausting grind of ever-changing quick-time events.
Edit: Having thought about it, I think part of my problem with the game might have to do with me having ADD. One of the common traits of ADHD/ADD is reduced speed and accuracy of reactions. I even had to take a test as part of my evaluation that was essentially a long quick-time event. The fact that Sekiro relies so heavily on this mechanic probably plays a large part in making it both difficult and exhausting for (some) people on the ADHD spectra.
For most Soulsborne fights, the fight rundown is basically "find out the ridiculous unstoppable attacks that are X times bigger/stronger/faster than what the player can ever do" followed up by "exploit the enemy gimmick". If it's a real struggle, grind up more or find out that the enemy has some random secret. The fights look impressive as anything with a great soundtrack to them, but the bulk of them, outside a handful of the humanoid fights that actually follow most of the combat rules, just feel lazily designed to me.
But it's also largely why I say the two just aren't directly comparable. You can like Soulsborne games and hate Sekiro, love Sekiro and hate Soulsborne game, or love or hate both of them. The design difference, and not just in the gameplay, is much too big to fairly stick them in the same category for comparison.
My big gripe about the parry indicator is that it was NOT properly synced up with faster attacks, making it almost useless against many boss attacks because you'd get the warning for the first parry and then start taking hits from the followup attacks where the parry indicator hadn't caught up yet. And if you still tried to parry after learning the combo, your timing would usually be off at some point.
I'm at the frozen city in Dark Souls 3, the swamp-forest in Bloodborne, and the second area in The Surge, and I've decided that these games, man they just take some time investment for me to get into playing a session. Like, I need about 3-4 hours because that first half hour to an hour is just me relearning how not to suck. And most times I don't get that time with a kiddo in the house. But there's a certain flavor to all of them that niggles at the back of my "well then fuck you" reaction in my brain that I actually enjoy. I guess what I'm saying is I'm sad I don't get more of a chance to at least choose when I get to play them, because even if they are way outside my usual comfort level, there's an element of figuring out these games that really jives with me.
And that said, I think I've written off Sekiro; I've never played it, I don't really want to, I'm just not interested in the mechanics enough to want to experience the story through them.
I beat it with KBAM in both remaster and the original pc release. It was easier in the Remaster because of smooth frame rate and better snappier controls. It's leagues above the original port which is garbage without Durantes fixes for the mouse and even then it's really sluggish. It has a lot of input lag and sometimes just doesn't respond. Skip it and get the Remaster.
Movement isn't going to be as smooth as with a controller but it's pretty similar to some other 3rd person games on PC. You might have to rebind some actions to a mouse side button but that's about it.
Other than the original port of DS1 Sekiro is the only From Souls like game I really struggled with due to the KBAM controls. That's why it's unfinished. Couldn't even beat Gyoubu.
Maybe there's a setting I could tweak or a high enough frame rate/monitor refresh would fix it for me?
edit: DS1 on PC is what actually convinced me that maybe KBAM wasn't strictly superior for 3D games 100% of the time.
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Sekiro for me always felt super simple and clear in how I should do better.
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I felt the opposite with Sekiro for a long time, and it still feels like it has more rhythm game DNA where you have to learn individual encounters rather than just 'how to play', but it feels better deeper in since you at least learn the tools enough to pick up those encounters relatively quick, outside of a few 'Gotcha this encounter kills you for doing that unlike every other encounter!' things.
Thing is, unlike DS2 which was also a miserable slog I hate-played for most of my first run, Sekiro has no replay value, so it can't become my favorite game via Stockholm Syndrome the way DS2 did for a long time.
DS3, on the other hand, I felt like I'd adapted to pretty early, because it's quick but everything still has clear tells and is easily rolled with the badass roll you have.
...to be honest I think Nioh without LW or equivalent cheese strats is harder than any of them. Same for Code Vein without a partner or one-shot stacks.
Though I guess that's like saying DS2 is the hardest because if you do it at SL1 you finish up BIK with PTSD.
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You just build so that you can survive anything long enough to drink estus and hit hard enough with a big dumb armor and a big dumb twohanded hyper-armor weapon so that even if you get bounced across the boss arena on every swing, you finish before you run out of estus.
It couldn't be tuned as tight, because of build variety. Or maybe would only be 100% viable on certain weapons or with shields.
Would be optional unless they killed your other defensive options (hyper-armor stagger or dodge roll).
Maybe that sounds watered down or missing some key magic to some of you, but it sounds like a lot of fun to me.
Since souls allows variety it doesn't serve it to use those system and that's why I prefer them.
I still need to do a bloodtinge build in Bloodborne and that's just not something you can do in Sekiro.
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Ah yes, the Peach Saliva strategy.
DS2's weapon aiming feature is doing her no favors.
I don't remember a release date ever being announced. Do you have a link?
i figured maybe launch with new consoles in fall but who knows now
When I looked up "Elden Ring release date" on Google, it came up with that date, with this article mentioning that "Currently Target has a release date of June 30th, 2020". That's as good as we've got thus far.
It's also pretty clear that the design philosophy for the gameplay is supposed to emulate actual dueling. If an enemy attacks with strong attack X, you counter with quick attack Y. If the enemy goes for a thrust, you disrupt the attack to throw them off balance and exploit the opening. It's a combat system of move/countermove, instead of a combat a system that spams huge attacks or high damage.
And one of my favorite things about the game is that combat looks better as you get better at it. You don't straight-up explode enemies by knowing their weak points or having overleveled stats/weapons, but you control the combat to the extent that the player looks awesome while they take apart the enemy without getting touched.
With the covenant stuff done, I continued on into NG+ finally and switched over to a Hollow Exile Greatsword and absolutely destroyed it, picking up the +1 rings before heading into NG++ where I switched to Vordt's Great Hammer. That thing is pretty damn good and made short work of NG++ to finish getting the +2 rings and finally getting 100% achievements on the only Souls game I've played that I hadn't gotten 100% on yet.
Shortly after doing that, GreenManGaming had a pretty good deal on the season pass, so I grabbed it, but I didn't want to first hop into the DLC with my NG++ character, so I started a pure Pyromancer. It honestly went pretty great through the whole normal game and the Painted World. Spoiler for comments on Sister Friede fight:
I started The Ringed City, the angel things in the swamp area were a massive pain in the ass. Probably the worst part was the pyromancer hostile NPC though, because she just dodges *every* spell you throw at her. Gah.
Then I got to the first boss in the Ringed City...
I don't remember how many tries it took in total, maybe 10 or so, but I did eventually get the Demon Prince down. Certainly not my favorite as a pure Pyro, that's for sure.
Then into the Ringed City proper... I hate the giants that summon the phantom archers, but the fact that they *respawn* is the absolute dumbest thing they could've done. I fought my way through the Ringed City with my pure Pyro for a while and I got to the point where Midir is sitting up on a cliff to harrass you with fire breaths, but I ended up stopping there when I peeked ahead at resistances and found out both Midir and Gael are highly fire *and* dark resistant. I didn't think I wanted my learning attempts at them to be with my pure Pyro, so I ended up getting sidetracked into a bit of a rabbit hole of making new character builds.
First up, I made a Dex character using the Brigand Twindaggers, which was interesting and a different playstyle. However, I got to Grand Archives, so pretty late game and realized the AR difference between 40 Dex and the minimum 18 Dex for the Sharp twindaggers was 250 versus 220. 30 AR didn't seem like it was worth the points... so I restarted the character last night, intending to go for a weapon buff build, which is probably what I should've done originally. It necessitated a restart because there was no way of getting Dark Blade since I had never done the Yoel/Yuria stuff. So the plan is to go for minimum stats for the Twindaggers and then get 18 Int and 60 Faith and use the miracle weapon buffs depending on boss weaknesses. I started a Deprived for it this time because I wanted to see if I could completely minimize the expense of having the Dark Sigils cured... so yeah, I didn't level up at all until after I had gotten my 5 'free' levels from Yoel, saved up 20k souls to buy the shrine tower key to get the Firekeeper's soul, and another 4k souls to permanently remove the Dark Sigils.
I wasn't sure if Yuria would permanently leave after I cured them, and in case I wanted any of her other stuff later, I decided I'd kill her to give her ashes to the handmaiden... being at level 6 with no upgraded weapons. It was an absolute pain in the dick but I eventually killed her. So I am looking forward to see how that run goes.
I made two strength characters, one specializing in Vordt's Great Hammer and another specializing in the Greatsword UGS. I've gotten them both pretty far through the game at this point and honestly, I think the Great Hammers are much better than the Greatsword. I'm not entirely sure just what all plays into that, I know the Great Hammer can stagger slightly easier than the Greatsword, which definitely makes things like the Harald Knights in the Ringed City much easier to deal with. And the improved Frostbite making it easy to get that percentage damage in there is really nice. I even took the Vordt's character into the first boss in Ringed City with no phantom help:
And finally, I made a bow only character, which I originally did a run of in Dark Souls Remastered, and then tried continuing into Dark Souls 2. Bow Only was super fun and easy in 1, in 2 it was very awkward to say the least... I still haven't actually finished that run yet. In 3, it's feeling alright. I'm using the composite bow and the rolling quick-shot is really good so far, even though it does a little less damage. I think it'll improve once I can eventually get the Leo Ring. Right now he's only just entering the Cathedral of the Deep, so it'll be a while, depending on when I end up getting back to him.
So yes, I'm not done with the Ringed City DLC yet, but I've been playing a lot of Dark Souls 3 lately. It's felt pretty good. Though I'm trying not to think about how ideally I probably want to get Darkmoon Blade on the twindaggers character... ugh.
Another Dark Souls Dissected, my longest video yet! This one is intended as a follow-up to my Lordran's Layout video, but focusing this time on out of bounds content.
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3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I mean, what I've seen from Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, and even Bloodborne tends to make me think that the cohesive nature of Dark Souls' world design is actually the anomaly.