Dark Souls 3

The shield mechanic was something I actually liked. It made for methodical thought out combat. BB is just frantically reefing on the attack and hoping your rally regain and stamina outlast the trash, or for bosses its just poke dodge poke. There were plenty of fights (and a lot of PvP) where having a shield did not matter or outright lowered your odds of winning. The amount of autotrack attacks and one hit kills in BB was, frankly, ridiculous especially given how twitch based the combat is. It is also annoying how they basically stripped any form of meaningful ranged attack from the player but then littered the game with ranged attacks with essentially unlimited ammo (particularly the NPC agro hunters). Say what you want about range gimping in the Souls series, but if rewarded knowledge of the enemies and maps, plus it was a not factor in boss fights.

The two things BB did do very well were the changes to the game world as the story progressed (which rewarded back tracking and make the mandatory potion farms somewhat less monotonous) and the numerous optional areas/bosses for people who want to scout the entire game. While the main path was fairly linear, having lots of side areas to dick around with made for some fun diversions, particularly castle cainhurst. I like the idea behind Insight, I just wish it was more than another form of currency for the player.

Vorph_sl said:

As was pointed out several times in the Bloodborne thread, you're doing it wrong.



And I can't take you seriously after posting this in a Dark Souls thread. BB has a small amount of autotracking. DkS2 has mobs that can pivot a full 180 degrees ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Click to expand...

Point 1-
I completed the entire game, minus the chalice stuff from Izl (sp?) Root onward. Once I got Ludwigs, all I did was mash R1 most of the time and no boss (aside from Martyr) took more than three attempts to beat. If it wasn't in a Depth 4+ Chalice dungeon, it ceased being difficult. Looking at the BB thread, it sure seems like I was not the only person with that experience.

Can you learn the intricate parry and attack patterns of the other weapons? Sure, but why bother with anything but Ludwigs (maybe Hunter's Blade eventually) and just faceroll your way through? For all the hipster cracks about shields in the souls games, at least you had to manage stamina and plan your takedowns of groups of enemies. The BB game? Wade in and reef R1, stepping out to heal if needed. I originally thought the problem was just Ludwigs being OP and/or the goofy hit boxes, but you get nearly the same situation with the Hunter's Blade only worse in some ways because it does not care what part of the weapon makes contact with when determining damage.

Point 2-
This crap turns up as early as the Forbidden Woods, with the hot poker witches changing direction mid attack. The werewolf casters and brain sucker shamans all spin track with their key moves. The executioners two main chop moves can alter direction in mid chop animation. The kung fu zombies in the Chalice dungeons do it tons. The floaty brains in Nightmare spin to face on their grabs and as an added bonus just radiate 360 frenzy with no range limit. That's just off the top of my head and not even getting into the boss mobs. You see enemies doing that crap from the first zone all the way until the end of the game, and everywhere in between.

Yes I know it happened a lot in DS2 (and DeS), though not very much in the DLC. But it was limited to a few specific attacks on only some of the enemies. Almost none of the bosses did it. Further, the game play in the Souls games is much more measured and less twitch, so dealing with it did not require the reaction time of a Korean starcraft player dosing red bull. It is also worth pointing out that none of the auto-tracking attacks in any Souls Game were for one hit kill attacks, like the various boss grapples that do it in BB. That is with the exception of the Persuer, who can eat a big bag of dicks as far as I am concerned.

Still want to point out, BB was an excellent game and one of the best of this console generation, hands down. I just preferred the more methodical combat of the Souls series.

Ritley_sl said:

I don't understand the complaints of potion farming. I think I honestly spent less than 30 minutes the whole game farming for "potions" (I was really farming souls to buy the potions). The change to increase your reserve capacity makes it even more trivial

Click to expand...

Early on, it REALLY sucked. Before you get Ludwigs and just faceroll/oneshot everything, some bosses present serious learning curves that burn up your stock. Once Hyperion Gaol opens up, then yeah full restock and some bonus mats in under 15 minutes. Its still tedious and there is no reason to make people farm blood vials, except to pad the length of the game. There is not an infinite supply of them, like herbs in Demons Souls and the increased capacity and healing mechanic for Estus worked just fine in DS2.