Dark Souls

Nirgon

Loser Nirgon

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Araxen said:
DS2 is the best Souls game.
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It is the big dawgs choice of Souls yes

This thread inspired me to read random anecdotes of people getting griefed in that game

Several pages of ppl berging about royal rat authority did me good today
 
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Yaamean

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Which one let you cut the tails off bosses and get weapons, was that 1? I fucking loved that and wish they kept it in all of the other games.

I should probably replay them all at some point soon, really want to try and get the BB emulation running on my PC. It has been a LONG time since I played it. Is there an easy way to download the rom + dlc?
 
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Rajaah

Rajaah

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Seananigans said:
That dude is terrifying, why would you want to download him?!
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Just realized that Rom was an intentional boss name to throw off internet searches for "Bloodborne ROM", just like naming the Elden Ring horse "Torrent"...
 
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Araxen

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Yaamean said:
Which one let you cut the tails off bosses and get weapons, was that 1? I fucking loved that and wish they kept it in all of the other games.

I should probably replay them all at some point soon, really want to try and get the BB emulation running on my PC. It has been a LONG time since I played it. Is there an easy way to download the rom + dlc?
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1 had cutting off of tails. I always wondered why they went away from that. That was always fun to do. It added a little extra challenge to the fight if you wanted it.
 
Ambiturner

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DS2 has some terrible design choices like having to put levels into adaptability to make dodge not be shitty, and bullshit gank squads that magically appear out of nowhere to cause cheap deaths that you can only avoid by already dying to them and knowing when/where they're going to happen.

Like in DS3, you can look around and see guys hanging on a wall, or even just their hands or something which rewards you for looking around and being careful. In DS2, you'll go out on a narrow ledge and 5 guys will magically appear and fall out of the sky.

Didn't help the it has a framerate durability bug on launch where your shit would break twice as fast if you played on 60fps.

It's the weakest of the From games, but still easily better than any non-from Soulslike
 
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Rajaah

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Ambiturner said:
DS2 has some terrible design choices like having to put levels into adaptability to make dodge not be shitty, and bullshit gank squads that magically appear out of nowhere to cause cheap deaths that you can only avoid by already dying to them and knowing when/where they're going to happen.

Like in DS3, you can look around and see guys hanging on a wall, or even just their hands or something which rewards you for looking around and being careful. In DS2, you'll go out on a narrow ledge and 5 guys will magically appear and fall out of the sky.

Didn't help the it has a framerate durability bug on launch where your shit would break twice as fast if you played on 60fps.

It's the weakest of the From games, but still easily better than any non-from Soulslike
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Enemy placement in DS2 was really bad compared to the others, yes. Can't remember how it was in vanilla DS2. Since I played Scholar first on PS4, then went back and played vanilla on PS3, as I do with Fromsoft.

Which reminds me, is it worth playing much of the original Oblivion now that Oblivion Remake exists? The grass actually being green, and the late 2000's bloom effects, are what I remember from Oblivion, and Remake doesn't have those. Part of me wants to play through both versions when I get back to Elder Scrolls, unless it would be a grand waste of time. Playing through both versions of, say, Demon Souls was certainly worth it; they are wildly different and the PS3 version is much much moodier.

In any case, I remember very little about the PS3 original of DS2, except that I flew through it quick. Scholar, though, the enemy placement drove me nuts. That game looked amazing in 2015, at least. Sky high framerate and visuals. DS2, especially SOTFS, really is "the worst From game and yet still better than any non-From Soulslike". That's a perfect description. Lies of P is the only thing that might challenge it from the pretender companies.
 
Rajaah

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All the talk about "SL1" runs...I went back and took a look, and nearly all of the classes start with a few levels already. Pyromancer is the only one that starts at SL1. Cleric is close, at SL2.

So ..do people just refer to base level runs as "SL1" for simplicity, or are all of these SL1 runs picking Pyromancer as their class?

I finished the game with an SL1 Pyromancer already and it wasn't exactly difficult. That class can run over the game. No levels just means you can pool Souls into the Pyromancer Flame instead. Would like to try a meleer with melee equipment (or better yet a Deprived) to try thr Blacksmith Hammer, but they all start at higher than SL1.
 
INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS

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Rajaah said:
Friend of mine tried Bloodborne for the first time and beat Cleric Beast on the first try, at whatever the default level is. Only other From game he played is Elden Ring, which he played for like 150 hours, so that's probably why. He was like "I thought Bloodborne was supposed to be super hard". He did have a rough time with the first boss, at least. Cleric Beast almost killed him a couple times. Then he just stuck to the foot and circled around it constantly. Was a "you sure you haven't played this already?" situation.



Demon Souls "half HP" penalty for dying sucks. Having to devote one of your two ring slots to the Cling Ring for the whole game sucks. The worlds getting harder if you cure the death penalty REALLY SUCKS. That world tendency thing is so obnoxious and I wish they would have tuned that in the remake. It's the main thing that makes Demon Souls hard to recommend to people. Which is unfortunate, because otherwise, it's a pretty easy game (compared to the others) and could have been a great entry point for someone that wants to get into other Fromsoft games after Elden Ring.



This is pretty much it yeah. Dark Souls 1's world design reminds me of Super Metroid or Metroid Prime. It's one of those extreme few games to feel like am actual place in a world. Then Dark Souls 2 just has a bunch of wildly-different levels stuck together and traversed via warping between them.
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The hardest souls game you play is your first.

Bloodborne is the easiest after elden ring though.
 
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INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS said:
The hardest souls game you play is your first.

Bloodborne is the easiest after elden ring though.
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the hardest soulslike game is the first one that makes you play an agile sword man who has to parry to win certain fights and you can't XP grind past challenge.

sekiro, the hardest one is sekiro.
 
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Noodleface

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Rajaah said:
All the talk about "SL1" runs...I went back and took a look, and nearly all of the classes start with a few levels already. Pyromancer is the only one that starts at SL1. Cleric is close, at SL2.

So ..do people just refer to base level runs as "SL1" for simplicity, or are all of these SL1 runs picking Pyromancer as their class?

I finished the game with an SL1 Pyromancer already and it wasn't exactly difficult. That class can run over the game. No levels just means you can pool Souls into the Pyromancer Flame instead. Would like to try a meleer with melee equipment (or better yet a Deprived) to try thr Blacksmith Hammer, but they all start at higher than SL1.
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For DS1 you have to be pyro. For a SL1 to be legit the screen needs to say your level is 1 at the end. I think for DS3 you'd need to be deprived but I can't actually remember.

I remember liking ds2 but going back it feels so much worse to play. Two things suck: bosses target you while spinning on a swivel constantly,.and Everytime you hit an enemy it feels super floaty and weird.
 
Rajaah

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INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS said:
The hardest souls game you play is your first.

Bloodborne is the easiest after elden ring though.
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I agree

... said:
the hardest soulslike game is the first one that makes you play an agile sword man who has to parry to win certain fights and you can't XP grind past challenge.

sekiro, the hardest one is sekiro.
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I also agree

Sekiro was the one I had the most trouble with, and also the one I played last. So...the rules of the rest of the series don't apply to Sekiro.

Pretty much everyone says that the hardest Soulsborne is whichever one they played first. For a ton of people that's Elden Ring. Calling ER the hardest Soulsborne is pretty comical though.

I had a bastard of a time with Dark Souls 2, and that was my first Souls game. Took me like 120 hours to beat the game the first time. I had a lot of areas where I flat-out cleared the zone because I killed every enemy 10+ times running back to bosses until they stopped spawning. The DLC bosses in Dark Souls 2 are pretty insane too.

I've played DS2 more recently (twice post Elden Ring, in 2022 and 2024) and still have trouble with it compared to the others. In comparison, Dark Souls 1 can get knocked over with a stiff breeze. I beat the game with an SL1 Pyromancer in like 8 hours.
 
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Pyros

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I played Sekiro for the first time like 2-3 weeks ago, it had been sitting in my Steam library for years, and honestly I didn't find it very difficult. The main thing though is I'd say Sekiro isn't really a Souls-like, or at least I ended up not playing it much like one. Exploration was done entirely playing it as a stealth game, and an easy one at that.

Enemies all die instantly to stealth attacks, barring a few specific units most are extremely blind, there's few patrols, there's poor alert AI(you can often kill an enemy in front of another if you're just far enough even though you'd have to be completely blind to not notice), you can reset aggro at will and most importantly escaping is the easiest ever since almost no enemy move at a decent speed and almost none of them can threaten you if you grapple like anywhere. Souls always take a while to explore because of the limited ressources and hard trash fights, but in Sekiro at no point did I wonder "damn when's the next bonfire I'm so low".

Now bosses and minibosses obviously play very differently, but even these I've found you can cheese A LOT of them by abusing one major difference between Sekiro and Souls, the absence of stamina limitations. In Sekiro, you can sprint as long as you want. You can literally run around sprinting non-stop and bait specific attacks, punish them with a few hits then resume running and win entire boss fights without doing anything else. Doesn't work for every boss, but surprisingly work with a majority of them.

Now for the few bosses where this technique doesn't work, you do have to learn to parry a bit, but not even that much. While obviously being a parry god will easily win the fights, I've found just blocking to be sufficient if you manage your posture bar enough between the attacks, learn which attacks are flurry of attacks in a row(for which you can just mash your block button and automatically parry everything cause the window is very lenient), and bait the red marker attacks for Mikiri/Jump attacks or dodge into attack. Many bosses I killed were extremely long fights where I just punished a little bit at a time without doing anything fancy, including the final boss.

Overall I've found it a lot easier once I got into the right mindset for the game. The first few I wiped a lot trying to play it like a Souls-like, all in the boss face and trying to just react to everything, but playing like a pussy makes things much easier(and is quite lore accurate since you are a Shinobi/Ninja).
 
Rajaah

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Have a question about a Dark Souls SL1 run (well, SL4 run since I already did a full SL1 Pyromancer, it was easy, and I want to actually do a base level run all the way through as a meleer at some point, irritating that it has to be SL4).

Also, correction, my SL1 Pyromancer run actually took 18 hours, not 8. I don't know why I thought it was 8 before. Just loaded the game up last night and took a look. Hard to believe that Deprived doesn't start at SL1, and yeah I'm irritated about it. I guess pick a Pyromancer and just don't use Pyro? Would much rather pick a different class.

Anyway, the question is: On an SL1 run am I better off having the Reinforced Club at Raw +5 or Regular +10? Seems like Raw is just flat-out better for this weapon since the only special effect it has is Bleed (which it has either way) and it'll do more damage at low levels with Raw (since you have no real Str to scale from). However later on, Regular +15 would be better than Raw +5, but I guess you could just switch it back to Regular +5 and go from there by then?

I'm thinking of Pre-O&S, since O&S was the wall when I tried a base level meleer in the past. The options at that point are Raw +5 and Regular +10.

Other things that'd help a base level run defeat O&S: Balder's Shield +10 (can farm it in Parish early, or just buy it in Sen's Fortress later) for the Stability, and the lightning resistance ring*

Because of the Bleed procs, Reinforced Club is the best SL1 weapon from what I can tell (though Blacksmith Giant Hammer does more damage and is better for pros, it has to be two-handed and is super weak against O&S, while the RC is good throughout and can be used with a shield). Plus you don't have to kill the Giant Blacksmith, which makes the game significantly more annoying (have to trek up to Sen's Fortress near the top to buy Large Shards).

Another question: Best class for a base level run? Bandit is the one I'd go with since it has 14 in both End and Str and 12 in Vit, which is probably the best any class gets for the primary melee stats at base level if using the RC as a weapon. The 14 End is enough to use the RC and Balder's Shield together without losing fast rolling (might have to take off your helm, but whatever).

* - What two rings would be good for this? Ring of Favor and Protection (the HP/Sta/Load "breaks if removed" ring) and the Ring of Steel Protection (+Defense) are the two I generally go with heading into Anor Londo. However for O&S I'm thinking the lightning resistance ring instead ROFAP and the Havel's Ring + some good armor instead of the ROSP? The base level weight load is pathetic and you can't go beyond your starting armor, generally, without turning into slow rolls (from the perspective of a Bandit here, which is I think the best class for a base level melee run).

Not going to try this for a while, don't have time (because I know I'll be sucked into the series again) but it's fun to wargame it out for when I do.
 
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