From Software Dark Souls 3

[Clockwork Knight]

having an extra chromosome is preferable to the level of autism required to get this bent over a weird area transition / wrong skybox

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Stuff

I never had any problems with the WA's. People just didn't know how to use them, and so they complained. And if you have trouble with the Follower Sabre WA, then just parry it.

Poise works now. Obviously From should have gotten it right at the beginning, but it's not really an issue with the game today.

And you're just wrong about armor. Poise aside, there was always something like a 200 damage per attack difference between wearing really heavy and really light armor. And if you stack the right kinds of armor against the right opponent, i.e. match the defenses to the attacks, you can get great defense.

I never once had any problems with magic. Granted I didn't go full on INT build in favor or a faith build, and later a pyro build. I have since gone full INT just to test it out. Worked great. Maybe sorcery has been buffed since launch, I wouldn't know... but it works great and I never had any problems.

Have you honestly not seen the awesome shield builds? Hell, the meta build uses the black knight shield.

 

[Lycra Suit]

Dark Souls 3 was trying too hard to be Bloodborne.

But it worked sale wise so why should they not keep rehashing the same fast paced grimdark formula now.

 

[cvv]

Is it still Stab Everything in the Pooper Simulator like the first 2?

Here's hoping From will finally kick backstabfags in the teeth and gets rid of this retarded feature in Sekiro.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I actually think it was handled better in Dark Souls 2. In that game it doesn't just happen; it's possible to wiff and miss the backstab, and as such isn't as powerful in PvP as in the other games.
DS2 did a lot of things wrong, but it also got some things, mostly mechanics, right.

 

[Fishy]

Guess if I'm going to make a first post, I might as well make sure it makes me look brain-damaged, ensuring low expectations for the future. So here goes...

DS2 is my favourite of the three. Funnily enough, I actually didn't enjoy it much the first time, and I very much preferred the neat connected world and loneliness of the first and the absolutely gorgeous third. But going back to 2 for a second playthrough just did it for me. Even more so than for 1 and 3, that second run blew my mind in how wrong I was in terms of all my old assumptions regarding difficulty and stupid annoying unfair design. Turns out, playing better just works. Those horrible unfair mob ganks for example are in fact very manageable and, with very few exceptions (helloooo Iron Keep run to Smelter) can be reliably sprinted past.
I still enjoy the other games a lot, but 2 is the one I keep going back to more often, enjoying its more 'fantasy adventure' feeling through coloured areas, its variety in terms of builds, weapons and armour, its half-way design in being relatively linear but opening up with 4 paths to navigate in various order, its sheer size with the three crowns added to an already large game, its slow ponderous combat, its bonfire ascetics for on-demand repeat boss fights, its silly powerstancing combos, and well, its flaws. Yes, the flaws have become endearing over time. Might be Stockholm Syndrome, bur there you go. I know how wonky the hippo grab hitbox is, and I know how to avoid it yet I won't ever make a full run without being grabbed at least one in ridiculous teleport-style, and it'll make me laugh both at the game (because they shouls have known better) and at myself (because I should have known better). Same with the ganks. I can fight/sprint every single one of them if I put my mind to it, yet I'll always end up at some point being murdered into a corner by 4-8 frenzied mobs in hilarious fashion. And no, the elevator-to-lava-lake doesn't make any sense, but it's fine, I can pretend it's gone down, that it's a magic lift moving through time and space, or that it doesn't matter because it's more entertaining, in a puzzling way, than being teleported from Firelink Shrine to the Wall of Lothric. Is it a flawed game? For sure. But I find it highly entertaining, and I love what it does in terms of addressing hollowing through Lucatiel.

So as not to be fully off-topic though, I'll say that DS3 is a bloody good game in my book. It probably has the most interesting combat, mechanically, and is absolutely gorgeous. That first sight of Irithyll is beautiful, the Dancer fight mesmerising, and the Ariandel/Ringed City tale of Gael's single-mindedness through time and space makes for very, very good closure. I do lament the increased linearity, spam-rolling and missed oppoortunity in discarding some DS2 stuff or changing it for the (imho) worse like bonfire ascetics, powerstancing and magic, but ah, the package works very well. And it has Patches, whose omission is, by far, the biggest sin of DS2.

 

[Hyperion]

Plus, there was nothing more satisfying than backstabbing someone with a spear, and watching as you lift them up off the ground, and then throw them.

The little things were so good.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Plus, there was nothing more satisfying than backstabbing someone with a spear, and watching you lift them up off the ground, and then throw them.

The little things were so good.

You mean shoving the spear up the poor bastard's ass, then lifting and throwing him down.
Fuck, now I want to make Vlad the Impaler in Dark Souls 2. First thing I will do is spear that merchant in Majula for role play reasons. He sells shit anyway.

 

[Arnust]

It was *really* easy to miss too and especially on players, the frames were the least generous they've ever been. Taking massively reduced damage during it isn't very consequential but it's not really a hindrance either.

 

[Sòren]

- i think dark souls 2 is better than dark souls 3, because it had some new ideas, while das3 was a rehash with badly balanced gameplay.
- yeah, but what about that elevator in the windmill that goes to the lava castle? literally unplayable, what a piece of shit of a game.

new ideas....like what? more capes? shitty pvp areas? a hell lot of redundant spells and even more npcs that make no sense?

because that windmill elevator is the only questionable thing about the ds2 world, right? majula -> lost city -> vikings. woods -> mansion (that's just a fucking corridor)-> dragons. (tho i give the game that that the mansion-dragon thing had at least some connection to the plot/lore).

 

[vota DC]

Dark Souls 2 introduced teleport, you had shortcuts in 1, that reminds me Diablo 1 and 2. Aso introduced hollow penalty and unfarmable enemies but both could be avoided (one with ring that reduce penalty from -50% to only -25% HP) and other with join and quit the pact.

 

[Sòren]

you could teleport after obtaining the lordvessel in ds1.

farming in ds2 was even more attractive due to the "upgrade bonfire" mechanic and higher exp. you could even farm unique enemies.

 

[Silva]

Extracted from: https://medium.com/@untimelygamer/b...e-space-and-lore-in-dark-souls-3-dda58dc38898

Betrayal of Fire - The problem with time, space and lore in Dark Souls 3

The Dark Souls series has always played fast and loose with time. In the original game Solaire of Astora famously says, “The flow of time itself is convoluted, with heroes centuries old phasing in and out. The very fabric wavers, and relations shift and obscure.” Time becomes blurred in the world of Lordran as past, present, and future collapse into one amorphous blob of time centered on your own quest. But this convoluted weaving of time has its limits: the different worlds each player inhabits generally remain separate. While you may see another player’s version of Undead Burg if you invade them, you will not see their version of the Burg in your own world. Each player’s world remains distinct and separable from others. As Solaire’s own speech indicates, the link between worlds becomes permeable mostly in situations of “jolly cooperation” i.e. multiplayer. The multiverse’s primary ludonarrative function is to justify how other players are playing the game at the same time as you and how they can interact with you in multiplayer. The white outlines and bloodstains serve as a reminder that others are playing (and dying) in the same game as you. Even NPCs in the Dark Souls games often act like other players: you can summon them to help you out against a boss or they can invade your world and kill you. This allows you to play the game with AI-controlled heroes of the past while wearing the armor you stripped from their corpse. There is, however, one instance in Dark Souls where I think the greater multiverse appears concretely within your own world. When you climb down to the optional area Ash Lake, you are greeted by a horizon filled with archtrees like the one you just descended from. Are each of these trees another Chosen Undead’s world? Are they undergoing a quest similar to yours on their own tree? And when you restart the game on New Game Plus, will you go to another one of those trees? Dark Souls never tells you, but it’s hard not to look over this vast distance and wonder.

The multiverse in the Souls universe exists to justify how other players leave demon butt-sex jokes in your world.
Dark Souls 2 expanded on this vision by showing us that time in the Souls universe had a linear, diachronic aspect to it. Dark Souls 2 takes place a long time after the events of Dark Souls. So long, in fact, that various kingdoms have risen and fallen in the meantime, and the name of the world has changed from Lordran to Drangleic. Even the mechanics have changed with time: the Undead no longer restore themselves to human form with the eponymous “dark souls” of humanity, but with human effigies. The knowledge of using talismans to perform miracles has been lost, and they are now performed on chimes as catalysts. The Ring of Sacrifice, an essential item that lets you keep your souls upon death, has been given the clunky name of the “Ring of Life Protection.” Some of the heroes you met in the first game have, against all odds, survived through the millennia, but their names, stories, and lore have mostly been forgotten. Early in the game you run into a boss called “The Old Dragonslayer.” This boss has the exact same armor and moveset as Dragonslayer Ornstein, one half of Dark Soul’s most famous and iconic boss fight. The Old Leo Ring and his soul description strongly suggest that he is not some knight that happened on the armor, but that Ornstein himself has somehow survived through the centuries. But his name is no longer remembered- he is just called “The Old Dragonslayer.” Even starring in one of the most memorable boss fights in the first game cannot save his name from the clutches of oblivion. The opposite fate happens to Ricard, a figure who exists at the periphery of the first game’s lore. Despite appearing just once in the original on an optional parapet at the edge of Sen’s Fortress, his name still lives on in the item description of the rapier named after him. Somehow, Ricard has survived and evolved into a folkloric hero. The message of Dark Souls 2 is clear: times change, kingdoms rise and fall, old knowledge, and even the very mechanics of this world, fall into obscurity. The survival of knowledge in the face of collapse is haphazard, and seems to be partially based on sheer luck.

It should be emphasized how realistic the view of time that Dark Souls 2 presents actually is. We live in a world where the nine canonical lyric poets of Greek antiquity, a canon which the Roman poet Horace was eager to insert himself in, for the most part only survive in fragments. The epic cycle, which described the events before and after Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, survives mostly in late-antique summaries. We only possess a handful of the enormous corpus of plays that Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides wrote. Their contemporaries are mostly lost completely. Even in the light of the twentieth-century, 75% of silent film has been "); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">lost. Time has been, and will continue to be, more destructive than most fantasy worlds allow in their lore. In an AAA video game this willingness to forget and obscure a significant part of a series’s past is far from insignificant. And even though Dark Souls 2 presents a similar multiverse to the original Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2 does not exploit this to bring back known and beloved characters. Its multiverse is populated mostly by the new faces of heroes from the intervening centuries. There is a clear sense that Lordran has been lost to the mists of time.

How does this map onto the world of Dark Souls 2? I have theories…
Dark Souls 3 resoundingly rejects Dark Souls 2’s vision of time. The kingdom’s name has changed once again (it’s “Lothric” now), but whereas Dark Souls 2’s vision of kingdoms coming and going could be read as cyclical, Dark Souls 3’s view of time is distinctly apocalyptical. As the game progresses, the sun becomes orange and dark as if it is eclipsed; in the final area of the game, a column of light shoots out of the sun to the ground. In the world of Dark Souls 3 the fire has clearly faded; humanity is long gone, and you consume embers as a pale substitute. The lesser flames that animate the demons have also burnt out. When you descend into the Smouldering Lake, you find the hordes of demons you encountered in the first game laying dead. In a world where even the First Flame is fading into nothingness, what hope could its poor substitute stand? I suspect (though this is more open to interpretation) that the Abyss too has been shattered and become localized in specific creatures or objects (such as Wolnir’s goblet). The Abyss Watchers, unlike Artorias, do not cross into the Abyss; they instead watch intently for even the smallest signs of it in others. The decay of the world is encapsulated in the final moments of the game. If you choose to link the First Flame, it has grown so weak that the Ashen One (the name of the Chosen Undead now) only bristles with a little flame when they link it. What was a heroic sacrifice (at least until the player read enough lore to realize that their Chosen Undead was being duped) in the first game has now become a hollow gesture. The alternate ending shows the Fire Keeper removing what pitiful little fire remains of the First Flame, and the whole world falling into darkness. The fire has faded.

The world is not only ending in Dark Souls 3, but time and space have begun to consume themselves. Whereas the original kept different parts of its multiverse distinct, in Dark Souls 3 it has become so twisted that it is starting to generate “errors” and duplications. This seems to be the message of the Untended Graves, a polygon for polygon double of Firelink Shrine and its environs. And it is not just the man-made features of the shrine that are duplicated: every twist of the mountain, every winding path through the cliffside, every ridge is the same as the opening area of the game. Whatever silent forces you are doing the bidding of in Dark Souls 3, they could not have caused every feature of the landscape to be replicated like this. Rather, as the presence of another shrine handmaiden suggests, the Untended Graves seems to be from a universe parallel to your own that you somehow gained access to. Is this what happens when the First Flame is not lit? Since you find an item essential to obtaining the ending where you put an end to the First Flame (the Eyes of a Firekeeper), it is very possible the Untended Graves shows what the world will look like if you refuse to link the flame. Darkness descends, and this particular corner of reality falls into disuse. More pessimistically, it also suggests that the world has already fallen to darkness, and this whole quest to reignite the flame is a wonderful lie. The very item of the “Eyes of the Firekeeper” as well as the Firekeeper’s talk of betrayal suggest that facing the reality of the world of Lothric is to literally look into a darkness without light.

The view from the Kiln of the First Flame. Time and space have spectacularly crashed into each other.
How far time and space has become contorted becomes even more clear when you reach the game’s final area, the Kiln of the First Flame. You first arrive in yet another duplicate of Firelink Shrine, unlit and fallen into disrepair. Again, this seems to be suggesting that the world has succumbed to darkness, that the Firelink Shrine you spend most of your time in is a lie. But the real kicker comes when you step out of the unlit Firelink Shrine towards the final boss of the game. In the distance you see dozens of castles stacked upon each other, their jagged edges distorted into unnatural shapes. Every Ashen One’s quest to link the fire across the ages converge on this very point, and this convergence has warped reality itself. We see a jumbled-up mess of other worlds, other dimensions, maybe even other ages, all amassing around this single point. Time and space in Dark Souls 3, therefore, has become a snake eating its own tail. The relationship between different realities is no longer merely obscured, but the worlds are disastrously crashing into each other.

Dark Souls 3’s apocalyptical vision of its world could be praised as being bold, though in a different way than Dark Souls 2’s vision was. To put it bluntly, Dark Souls has made From and its publisher Bandai Namco a lot of money. In the context of AAA sequel culture it is a daring move to signal the end of a world which fans would gladly revisit again for another $60. Dark Souls 2 kept the door open for sequels by hinting at a cycle of destruction and renewal. Dark Souls 3, by contrast, closes the door by showing this cycle beginning to destroy itself, and the world itself tearing from the strain. It is possible to return to the Souls universe in another sequel, but From has made it that much harder to justify. The world of Dark Souls 3 truly feels at its end.

It may be contradictory, but Dark Souls 3 sure is pretty.
But this leads to the main contradiction of Dark Souls 3’s view of time: with its complicated multiverse collapsing on itself, there is no good reason why the entire game should hearken back to the original Dark Souls. More than hearken, it almost completely disregards Dark Souls 2. A good example of the troubled relationship that Dark Souls 3 has with its predecessor can be seen in the chime vs. talisman problem discussed above. Dark Souls 3 resolves this dilemma by letting you cast miracles on both chimes and talismans. This reveals that the game recognizes Dark Souls 2 as part of its history, but also without explanation returns to the default provided by the original Dark Souls. This “back to the basics” approach appears everywhere in Dark Souls 3. Once again, Rings of Life Protection are Rings of Sacrifice, and refer to Velka in their flavor text, who seemed to be mostly lost to time in Dark Souls 2. The lore of Dark Souls 3 is filled to the brim with references to Vinheim, Izalith, and the like; gone (as far as I know) are many of the names introduced in Dark Souls 2 such as Melfia, Lindelt, Jugo. There are a handful of references to Dark Souls 2 scattered throughout the game, but not nearly as prevalent as references to the first game. Even worse, plot threads the first Dark Souls left hanging are taken up again in Dark Souls 3 as if nothing happened in the interim. Dark Souls 2 seems like an aberration, a short cosmic detour before the world returns to the course set by the first Dark Souls. And in a world twisting and coiling onto itself, there is no good reason from a lore perspective why Dark Souls 3 should be returning to the path set by the first Dark Souls. Why is Andre in Firelink Shrine? Why, for that matter, is Firelink Shrine back to its original glory? Why do well-known fan favorites return to Dark Souls 3? Why not more of the Dark Souls 2 cast, or even people peripheral to the first Dark Souls (like Ricard)? Unfortunately, it becomes apparent that these characters are not here for the purpose of lore, but for simple fanservice. From just wanted to bring back fan favorites, and it has exploited the series’ biggest storytelling loophole to achieve this. The game can explain why Siegmeyer trots off the elevator, but it can never justify why this particular fan-favorite has appeared over many countless others. The return to Dark Souls undermines the very contortion of the universe the game graphically shows.

Dark Souls 3’s view of time and space therefore operates on a contradiction, as it cannot quite justify the blatant return to the original as it portrays a world in collapse. And as much as I dislike this contradiction, I must admit there is a certain poetry to this conclusion. It’s both a return and an end, a closed loop that will continue to spiral. Even if it does so in a deeply contradictory manner, the series ends where the first game began.

 

[vota DC]

Lore is simpler.
Ds1 you start in asylum.
"Eh because I am undead, not crazy"
You even kick a puppy
"No he was a giant wolf and was wielding a sword"

So unless you believe dogs have opposable thumbs it is clear that Ds1 hero is the real villain.

Ds2 you fight ds1 hero's regime.

Ds3 not only the world is disappearing but your character too. It becomes invisibile against bosses that cover all visual.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Here's hoping From will finally kick backstabfags in the teeth and gets rid of this retarded feature in Sekiro.

We can only hope.

I still remember playing the first game for the first time, after dying like 999999 times on a boss fight, I'd look up how people beat it on the YouToobs. And sure enough, the top solution was to stick a sword in its butthole. Every. Single. Time. Lyk omg you guize how can ppl have trouble with this fight? Just ass-stab it.

It's like the character classes that can't poostab (which are most of them) don't even exist.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Here's hoping From will finally kick backstabfags in the teeth and gets rid of this retarded feature in Sekiro.

We can only hope.

I still remember playing the first game for the first time, after dying like 999999 times on a boss fight, I'd look up how people beat it on the YouToobs. And sure enough, the top solution was to stick a sword in its butthole. Every. Single. Time. Lyk omg you guize how can ppl have trouble with this fight? Just ass-stab it.

It's like the character classes that can't poostab (which are most of them) don't even exist.

Because the stam and poise changes made hiding behind a greatshield unviable, because apparently miyazaki was still obsessed with bloodborne and had to force all its mechanics into dark souls 3, to the games detriment.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Shields are part of what make backstabbing OP though. They let you strafe around an enemy forever with no risk until they do their big windup that lets you backstab, because all their attacks with decent tracking/horizontal range do fuck all to a shield.

Also why the fuck would you bring up boss fights? Are there even any bosses in the first game you can backstab? I can't think of one. I guess if you count Havel?

 

[Somberlain]

You can backstab Abyss Watchers and Friede. Not sure if there are any others since I don't backstab, I only parry and riposte with my katana WA

 

[Fishy]

You can backstab Abyss Watchers and Friede. Not sure if there are any others since I don't backstab, I only parry and riposte with my katana WA

That at least involves a bit of movement. Then there's parrying Pontiff and Champion Gundyr for ultimate non-fights.

Don't mind it too much though. It's there if you're speedrunning or absolutely hate the fight, and if not, well, you just don't do it. Souls game are very much about setting up the challenge yourself. Backstabbing/parrying might be cheesy, but then, there are tons of tools around that people choose to use or ignore depending on what they're after: ranged weapons, magic, greatshields, resins, dung pies, infinite availability of xp farming...

 

[Perkel]

Shields are part of what make backstabbing OP though. They let you strafe around an enemy forever with no risk until they do their big windup that lets you backstab, because all their attacks with decent tracking/horizontal range do fuck all to a shield.

Also why the fuck would you bring up boss fights? Are there even any bosses in the first game you can backstab? I can't think of one. I guess if you count Havel?

You don't have that problem if you don't use lock on.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Shields are part of what make backstabbing OP though. They let you strafe around an enemy forever with no risk until they do their big windup that lets you backstab, because all their attacks with decent tracking/horizontal range do fuck all to a shield.

Also why the fuck would you bring up boss fights? Are there even any bosses in the first game you can backstab? I can't think of one. I guess if you count Havel?

That's where kicking comes in, and unstoppable force, like two dark katans empowered with the lightning of the sun. Once you break their stance, you stab them in the neck.

 

[deuxhero]

you could teleport after obtaining the lordvessel in ds1.

farming in ds2 was even more attractive due to the "upgrade bonfire" mechanic and higher exp. you could even farm unique enemies.

Honestly the thing that made farming most attractive in DS2 was the ability to kill annoying enemies that spawned near bonfires till they stopped appearing. I'd say it's degeneracy, but there are many points it was clearly intended (and not in a good way).

 

[Wunderbar]

new ideas....like what? more capes? shitty pvp areas? a hell lot of redundant spells and even more npcs that make no sense?

Like bonfire ascetics, better NG+, dual wielding with powerstancing, mundane infusion, better rings that supplement character building (Rob Flynn anyone?), actually useful poison.

Btw, everything you said can be said about DaS3 (except capes).

because that windmill elevator is the only questionable thing about the ds2 world, right? majula -> lost city -> vikings. woods -> mansion (that's just a fucking corridor)-> dragons. (tho i give the game that that the mansion-dragon thing had at least some connection to the plot/lore).

you can say the same about DaS3, it was as linear as call of duty and had a lot of transitions that didn't make any sense.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

The one thing I hate about das3 that I cant say enough is that they copied das2s covenants instead of 1, but somehow made the covenants even worse. Like locking the arena behind an expansion. And gutting the darkmoon covenant. And not having just one pvp zone guild, but iirrc 3, and all level dependent so pvp was now harder than ever to find. Even the pve online mode was made worse with how they nerfed raiders, and buffed defenders, as well as giving an additional person to the defending side, almost killing off invasion pvp entirely, which as annoying as invasion pvp was, was an important aesthetic of playing dark souls 1, or 2. It added suspense if you were brave enough or desperate enough to not go around hollow, but whole. DaS3 lacks the synergy that DaS1 had with the darkmoon and the darkwraith covenants, which were in my subjective opinion, the best ones.

 

[deuxhero]

DS2's capes always caused massive framerate drops on PS3 so I avoided armor with them.