From Software Bloodborne. Discuss or die!

[Silva]

Sorry Jaedar but you're nit being totally fair to arc builds. It's the most difficult early game but INSANELY powerful late game.

Soul Arrow (aka Blackskye Eye) and Executioner Gloves are so powerful it becomes cheesy-easy against most foes, obviating half bosses and strong enemies with safe, long range attacks.

And elemental gems allows it to hit each type of enemies where it hurts - fire for beasts, arcane for pthumerian, bolt fot kin. No other build has such efficient repertoire.

And this without counting tools like Mokotovs, Torches, etc. that scale with Arc.

Also, Cauliflower Man.

Arcanist is easily the most fun build in the game.

 

[Jaedar]

Also, Cauliflower Man.

Hmm?

And elemental gems allows it to hit each type of enemies where it hurts - fire for beasts, arcane for pthumerian, bolt fot kin. No other build has such efficient repertoire.

I totally agree! I even said this above! But this is mostly true about weapons, not as much for spells.

Soul Arrow (aka Blackskye Eye) and Executioner Gloves are so powerful it becomes cheesy-easy against most foes, obviating half bosses and strong enemies with safe, long range attacks.

This does not really contradict what I said above.

Arcanist is easily the most fun build in the game.

Very possibly true! I had more fun with it than strength build.

 

[Jaedar]

Hmm?

Cauliflower man is what happens when you equip the Milkweed rune you get from the brain lady in the Research building. Its use is to unlock the special attacks of the Kos Parasite.

Oh right, yeah its cool but tbh if you have killed kos you're practically NG+ already...

Also after having tried it, I was not at all convinced it was superior to ludwig's blade.

 

[Black Angel]

Fuck Iosefka that bitch (amazing event)

Spoiler

It's not actually Iosefka.

 

[Perkel]

Using moonlight sword 50arcane and off hand that dlc heavy whip with fire instead of phys.

Almost done with dlc. Ludwig was amazing boss much more interesting than maria. Maria was letdown as with my tentacle spell she couldn't really do anything. Beat her on first try.

I only need to beat kos. He reminds me a lot that psomething bishop from ds3. A lot of nasty attacks but at mefium range pretty managable

Dlc is solid but i wouldn't say it is better than any other souls dlc.

Where level design shines bosses are a bit to easy.

 

[The Decline]

Kos kept wrecking me in melee, so I cheesed him by keeping my distance and whittling him down with Blacksky Eye. Not my finest moment.

 

[Talby]

i made this, i hope you guys like it

 

[Silva]

Dlc is solid but i wouldn't say it is better than any other souls dlc.

Where level design shines bosses are a bit to easy.

Don't know... Ludwig, Orphan and Lawrence were huge brick walls for me, even without resorting to bullshit 3 phase fights. Add to that a fuckton of new weapons and big revelations that call back to the base game lore-wise, and this is clearly a contender for best DLC for me.

But then all Soulsborne DLCs are top notch. Aside from DS3 - the clearly inferior one to me - it's difficult to pinpoint the best one.

 

[Somberlain]

I found the giant duo guarding Rakuyo to be more difficult than the bosses, Orphan aside.

 

[Silva]

I never killed the shark brothers.

 

[Perkel]

I found the giant duo guarding Rakuyo to be more difficult than the bosses, Orphan aside.

True until moment when you realize you can use that knife to set them on each other.

 

[Gentle Player]

I found the giant duo guarding Rakuyo to be more difficult than the bosses, Orphan aside.

True until moment when you realize you can use that knife to set them on each other.

True indeed; still must time it right before you get flattened, as it's a long animation.

 

[Paul_cz]

Finished the game yesterday. Not bad, not the greatest gift to mankind I was led to believe.
What I liked:

- atmosphere
- lovecraftian lore being cool as fuck, cthulhus amgydalas just hanging around
- enemy design
- faster combat

What I disliked:

- some shitty boring locations (various nightmares, forbidden forest was mindnumbing)
- low difficulty (except Cleric and BSB I killed every boss quickly and easily)
- short as fuck (twice shorter than Dark Souls and yes, I did every "secret" area like cainhurst)
- the shortness was probably blessing, since it got monotonous, after around 20 hour mark I was starting to get bored
- questionable design choices (estus gone etc)

Solid 7/10, but for me weakest of the souls games.

 

[Falksi]

Ah Bloodborne, right up there with Witcher 3 for "overhyped dullness"

 

[Perkel]

More like it doesn't have padding like second part of DS1 is or all those garbage areas in vanilla DS2.

Imo best thing about BB is level design and lack of bonfires/lamps which goes hand in hand. To get faster somewhere you need to open up shortcut.

Imo best souls game would be:

DS2 combat systems (as in powerstancing, stats, damage calc etc)
DS3 weapons (as in animations, specials etc) + new weapons
BB level design aproach
DS1 non linearity from start
DS3 bosses aproach with multi stages and moveset changes.
DS1 movement animations (running, blocking hard hits etc.)
BB multiplayer system

And i would personally want persistent co-op. While in DS1 it was novelty that you couldn't communicate and needed to resummon all the time by the DS3 i am tired of that. I don't see a reason why persistent co op shouldn't in. That doesn't mean multplayer would need to completely change. Just set it up in such way that if you use password your co op buddy with password won't vanish.

Covenants also would need major rework. More lore, less automation. And make each covenant go to deep end and not some shallow one liner comment. What i mean about it is that each covenant should also give you some sort of quest line or even whole areas to explore or change how game will end up, or you will see different events in game according to what you did with covenant. Or you explore some location and thanks to being in some covenant npc will open up new area or shortcut for you.

DS1 chaos covenant was kind of like this but it was to shallow. Serpents in DS1 while not being covenant related they were good indication how covenants could work. Each representing different view on world trying to achieve different things but having actual impact on game rather that superfluous barely noticeable things

Like case of DS1 way of the white. It would be great if you would join that covenant as noob and lock yourself out from other quest lines because when you would join that covenant automatically few npcs would be hostile, kaathe would not show up etc and player would be like automatically driven to link the flame and without not joining this cov. he wouldn't be able to see other "paths" to finish game.

 

[Paul_cz]

The level design was good. The discovering of shortcuts and the "aha!" moments like coming back to josefka through forbidden woods were cool, not denying that. But it just felt very samey to me, no variety. Stand out locations were central yharnam and cainhurst, rest of the locations from kind of meh from visual standpoint.

One pet peeve of mine though is how hyped these games are. I just...I mean they are glorified 3D Diablos, basically. Yes the lore is cool and some gameplay mechanics and level design is ingenius. But...I dunno. I will always consider an actual RPG with broad scope of interaction like FO1/2,Bloodlines, Arcanum, TW etc to be "better" and more ambitious games, more deserving of praise. In BB/DS the developers don't bother with stuff that other companies would be crucified for lacking - any kind of lipsync, dynamic time of day, weather systems..all kinds of stuff. Now I am not saying these games need it to be enjoyable, but..if other games lacked it, they would get criticised for it.

 

[Perkel]

This shows more that it is better to be amazing in few thing and be shit in others rather than being just good in all parts.

 

[Falksi]

More like it doesn't have padding like second part of DS1 is or all those garbage areas in vanilla DS2.

Imo best thing about BB is level design and lack of bonfires/lamps which goes hand in hand. To get faster somewhere you need to open up shortcut.

Imo best souls game would be:

DS2 combat systems (as in powerstancing, stats, damage calc etc)
DS3 weapons (as in animations, specials etc) + new weapons
BB level design aproach
DS1 non linearity from start
DS3 bosses aproach with multi stages and moveset changes.
DS1 movement animations (running, blocking hard hits etc.)
BB multiplayer system

And i would personally want persistent co-op. While in DS1 it was novelty that you couldn't communicate and needed to resummon all the time by the DS3 i am tired of that. I don't see a reason why persistent co op shouldn't in. That doesn't mean multplayer would need to completely change. Just set it up in such way that if you use password your co op buddy with password won't vanish.

Covenants also would need major rework. More lore, less automation. And make each covenant go to deep end and not some shallow one liner comment. What i mean about it is that each covenant should also give you some sort of quest line or even whole areas to explore or change how game will end up, or you will see different events in game according to what you did with covenant. Or you explore some location and thanks to being in some covenant npc will open up new area or shortcut for you.

DS1 chaos covenant was kind of like this but it was to shallow. Serpents in DS1 while not being covenant related they were good indication how covenants could work. Each representing different view on world trying to achieve different things but having actual impact on game rather that superfluous barely noticeable things

Like case of DS1 way of the white. It would be great if you would join that covenant as noob and lock yourself out from other quest lines because when you would join that covenant automatically few npcs would be hostile, kaathe would not show up etc and player would be like automatically driven to link the flame and without not joining this cov. he wouldn't be able to see other "paths" to finish game.

I've yet to play DS3 but think that's agreat summary of the other games.

My own personal fave so far is DS2. Combat system is bang on, I prefer the aesthetics to all the others, and enjoyed the more linear approach too.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

The level design was good. The discovering of shortcuts and the "aha!" moments like coming back to josefka through forbidden woods were cool, not denying that. But it just felt very samey to me, no variety. Stand out locations were central yharnam and cainhurst, rest of the locations from kind of meh from visual standpoint.

One pet peeve of mine though is how hyped these games are. I just...I mean they are glorified 3D Diablos, basically. Yes the lore is cool and some gameplay mechanics and level design is ingenius. But...I dunno. I will always consider an actual RPG with broad scope of interaction like FO1/2,Bloodlines, Arcanum, TW etc to be "better" and more ambitious games, more deserving of praise. In BB/DS the developers don't bother with stuff that other companies would be crucified for lacking - any kind of lipsync, dynamic time of day, weather systems..all kinds of stuff. Now I am not saying these games need it to be enjoyable, but..if other games lacked it, they would get criticised for it.

Imo that just shows that you don't need all that fluff when your core design is sound and executed well. DS tells a more profound story than most other games without actual storytelling (if that makes any sense), it has more engaging and satisfying gameplay without actually having that many mechanics, the characters are more memorable without actually being fleshed out.

It's not a checklist game. It's a great idea executed with creativity. Everything important is there, everything unnecessary isn't. (talking about DS1 here).

 

[Paul_cz]

This shows more that it is better to be amazing in few thing and be shit in others rather than being just good in all parts.

And what is even better is being amazing in few things, good in others and shit in none Yay

 

[Perkel]

This shows more that it is better to be amazing in few thing and be shit in others rather than being just good in all parts.

And what is even better is being amazing in few things, good in others and shit in none Yay

I disagree.

PoE - Good all around but doesn't excels in anything
DOS - Amazing combat, shit story, mediacore world, shit loot.

We know which one was Dex goty.

If you look at other games like Kotor2, Bloodlines, Torment, Gothic etc. You will find that they have both higherst highs and lowest lows and yet they are the one that dex loves not some other games that doesn't really have downsides.

Mediacore or good is just world for boring which is far more worse than something being just bad.

 

[Paul_cz]

Mediacore or good is just world for boring which is far more worse than something being just bad.

This sentence makes no sense on multiple levels and not just because of that awesomely misspelled mediocre :D
If something is bad, it actively pisses me off. If it is good, well, that's the opposite of bad. Because it's, you know, good.
And even something being mediocre is preferable to bad, because at least I can get through it without it pissing me off.

That said I do agree with your assesment of PoE and DOS, not a huge fan of those.

Anyway. My overall point was that I will always find RPGs with broader scope of player agency and interaction in both gameplay and narrative (FO1/2/NV/Arcanum, Torment, Gothic 1/2/Elex, Witcher 1/2/3, Age of Decadence, Bloodlines, KOTOR, KCD) higher than these glorified diablo-likes with cool lore, even if they don't pull off everything perfectly.

 

[Somberlain]

Anyway. My overall point was that I will always find RPGs with broader scope of player agency and interaction in both gameplay and narrative (FO1/2/NV/Arcanum, Torment, Gothic 1/2/Elex, Witcher 1/2/3, Age of Decadence, Bloodlines, KOTOR, KCD) higher than these glorified diablo-likes with cool lore, even if they don't pull off everything perfectly.

But feel free to have it

 

[sullynathan]

Perkel BB multiplayer is worse than DS multiplayer

Anyway. My overall point was that I will always find RPGs with broader scope of player agency and interaction in both gameplay and narrative (FO1/2/NV/Arcanum, Torment, Gothic 1/2/Elex, Witcher 1/2/3, Age of Decadence, Bloodlines, KOTOR, KCD) higher than these glorified diablo-likes with cool lore, even if they don't pull off everything perfectly.

Nearly all those games are worse than all the Souls games

 

[Perkel]

Perkel BB multiplayer is worse than DS multiplayer

It is identical in how it works. Difference is that instead of using soapstones that you write read you ring a bell. In case of soapstones you need to fight with other people to use soapstone and you often read already taken signs.
In case of BB you fire up bell and you WILL connect and you won't need to constantly try to find working sign AND you don't need to find where sign even is. You can have bell working whole level and you will summon people as long as they have their own bell working.

It is much better system to signs which hardly work correctly with such shitty server update tick.