From Software Dark Souls 3

[mediocrepoet]

Shields feel worthless,

They are not worthles, you just need to find better ones.

I've got a Lothric Knight shield at stability 54. From what I see on the wiki, that's already pretty decent unless you're going up to great shields.

 

[Talby]

Shame about the PvP, it will hurt the longevity of the game. Bloodborne had the same problem and the PvP scene is basically non-existant.

What same problems? As I see it the main problem in DS3 is badly designed poise. You can swing a puny longsword and chain stagger people in Havel armor. That's idiotic. But BB didn't have any armor or poise, at least from what I've seen on YT, since it's all light clothes? Plus BB is PS4 exclusive so no wonder the community is much smaller.

BB has the same problem with fast and plentiful healing, turning most fights into a battle of attrition which isn't fun. It also had the same 2v1/3v1 gangbangs since outside of two specific areas, invading was only possible if someone was trying to summon for co-op.

 

[cvv]

Shame about the PvP, it will hurt the longevity of the game. Bloodborne had the same problem and the PvP scene is basically non-existant.

What same problems? As I see it the main problem in DS3 is badly designed poise. You can swing a puny longsword and chain stagger people in Havel armor. That's idiotic. But BB didn't have any armor or poise, at least from what I've seen on YT, since it's all light clothes? Plus BB is PS4 exclusive so no wonder the community is much smaller.

BB has the same problem with fast and plentiful healing, turning most fights into a battle of attrition which isn't fun. It also had the same 2v1/3v1 gangbangs since outside of two specific areas, invading was only possible if someone was trying to summon for co-op.

I see. Btw in DS3 the 1v1 invasions ARE possible it's just as an invader you have a much higher priority to be summoned into a world with one or more white/golden phantoms.

 

[praetor]

God I hate these games why the fuck do I play them.

because you hate the players, not the games

btw, killed Yhorm the shit giant (lame boss, barely better than storm king), Aldrich (awful, terrible boss. even worse than Sully when it comes to the amount of dodging. what is this, a bullet hell game? by far the worst boss in the game so far, easily on par with garbage-tier bosses like Bed of chaos), and Dancer (dead on first try, she's weak to bleed apparently and easily staggerable so i just spammed R1 [lololol awesome boss lololol!] until she died. i think i chugged once or twice. at least the music and atmosphere are nice)

in retrospect, so far Sully was the only decent boss fight. still hate him with a passion and he's quite a bit inferior to pretty much everything (except the "challenge" routes, of course) in DaS2 dlcs and other various assorted best boss fights in the series, but that's mainly because of the subpar combat mechanics. hopefully the next ones live up to the hype 'cause they've all been shit to mediocre at best

 

[Echo Mirage]

Is the Irithyll straight sword good?

I know that it does frost damage. I was thinking of using my twinkling titanite on it and either using it as my main. Or as a backup to my Astora straight sword.

 

[praetor]

DS2 pvp is right now best in series and Vendrick is best bro out of all kings but it took them about one fucking year of constant patches and dlcs before they get there and I dont think poise worked in this game until SotFS edition.

poise has always worked (unless they broke it in some patch that i don't remember), it just took a bit longer to figure out as it wasn't as obvious and OP as in DaS1. imo, the breakpoints are totally retarded, but at least the underlying mechanics are good and definitely better than the shitfest of DaS1 poise or the complete absence of it in DaS3/DeS

anyway, most of what you mentioned regarding DaS2 were balance problems or glitches. surprisingly, the balance in DaS3 is pretty good (compared to the other Souls titles), it's the underlying mechanics that are godawful, which won't get patched

 

[praetor]

Plus BB is PS4 exclusive so no wonder the community is much smaller

except BB sold more on the ps4 alone in like the first month than the other games on all platforms combined. the problem is not the amount of people having the game, but the underlying mechanics being shit for PvP (kinda like DaS3, except in the latter they're also shit in PvE) and the amount of grinding in the chalice dungeons you have to do to be competitive

 

[Perkel]

Yes, and most of DS3 is basically one huge Shrine of Amana. From midgame on there are a lot of places you have to approach like a puzzle, you can't just run through. Clerics healing knights, hollows places on ramparts shooting you with fire arrows and hucking Loyd's Talismans at you, Abyss monsters popping out at strategic places, very cool.

Don't forget those knights patrolling who just love to join fight coming out of nowhere.

 

[cvv]

Plus BB is PS4 exclusive so no wonder the community is much smaller

except BB sold more on the ps4 alone in like the first month than the other games on all platforms combined.

Copies sold in the first month are hardly relevant in a debate about the long-term health of the PvP community. I'm pretty sure lifetime sales of DS2 are at least twice of BB, probably more. And I'm almost sure DS3 will be a smash hit in general, not just within the franchise.

 

[praetor]

Plus BB is PS4 exclusive so no wonder the community is much smaller

except BB sold more on the ps4 alone in like the first month than the other games on all platforms combined.

Copies sold in the first month are hardly relevant in a debate about the long-term health of the PvP community. I'm pretty sure lifetime sales of DS2 are at least twice of BB, probably more.

no they're not. the whole Souls series has sold 8,5mil copies. of which roughly 3mil are DaS2 + SotFS (the latter was barely over half a million). meanwhile, BB sold over a million in the first month and is now around 2mil (and that's on a single platform)

and yet, the online on SotFS PC is waaay more active than Bloodborne on PS4, which is nearly dead (like DaS2 vanilla on PC), even though the former sold barely over a quarter.

 

[Wolfe]

Looks like they patched out the tree trick on Firelink... Such a shame since those little tricks are a staple of the series.

I just tried it and it worked.

 

[Perkel]

SteamSpy&SteamCharts stats:

DARK SOULS 1 -             Owners: 2,408,064 ± 36,139
DARK SOULS 2 -             Owners: 1,052,319 ± 23,944
DARK SOULS 2 SoTFS -       Owners: 652,145 ± 18,862   ~1,600,000 combined
DARK SOULS 3 -             Owners: 686,401 ± 19,350

So DS3 already has sold more than SoTFS through its lifetime
in few days and it is on its way to beat total DS2 sales shortly.
Probably it will slow down in 2-3 months to few thousand copies a day a month.

DS1 : peak - 11k people   :  average 2,5k players per day monthly (last year only)
DS2 : peak - 79k people   :  average 5,5k player per day monthly (1k v and 4,5k sotfs)
DS3 : peak - 129k people :  xxx

 

[Cowboy Moment]

By the way, is NG+ any good?

because you hate the players, not the games

btw, killed Yhorm the shit giant (lame boss, barely better than storm king), Aldrich (awful, terrible boss. even worse than Sully when it comes to the amount of dodging. what is this, a bullet hell game? by far the worst boss in the game so far, easily on par with garbage-tier bosses like Bed of chaos), and Dancer (dead on first try, she's weak to bleed apparently and easily staggerable so i just spammed R1 [lololol awesome boss lololol!] until she died. i think i chugged once or twice. at least the music and atmosphere are nice)

in retrospect, so far Sully was the only decent boss fight. still hate him with a passion and he's quite a bit inferior to pretty much everything (except the "challenge" routes, of course) in DaS2 dlcs and other various assorted best boss fights in the series, but that's mainly because of the subpar combat mechanics. hopefully the next ones live up to the hype 'cause they've all been shit to mediocre at best

Surprised with the hate on Aldrich, he seemed to me at the very minimum to be a novel idea (that is, not a dude swinging his weapons at you), and he really doesn't require a lot of dodging at all, as most of his attacks can be avoided by running. If anything, his problem is that just running at him and mashing R1 is a very good strategy, and the only attack you need to care about is the arrow rain. With some tweaking, though, I think he could be made into an awesome bossfight.

It's one of the annoying things about DS3 for me, there are a lot of very cool boss designs in it (Abyss Watchers, Aldrich, Dancer, Twin Princes which you will see soon and likely oneshot as well), but they are crippled by a combination of healing being too strong, AI being passive and erratic, and R1 spam staggering.

At least you should enjoy Nameless King. That one is legitimately great.

Don't forget those knights patrolling who just love to join fight coming out of nowhere.

I can't even tell if you people are trolling or insane anymore. You are literally talking about having a ranged mob shoot at you while you fight melee mobs to be some kind of holy grail of encounter design, when it's something that happens constantly in every single Souls game, DS2 included. Having ranged mobs is not what makes Shrine of Amana a good level, it's the area design as a whole, the combination of environmental hazards, the tradeoff of using a torch and waking up the sleeping lizards vs not seeing the ground in front of you, and yes, the placement of the priestesses vs the cover you are provided.

This is actually one of my major criticisms of DS3 level design, it's basically all just rooms with enemies without anything to spice it up, save for ambushes, which are so frequent that it's surprising when they don't happen.

 

[CptMace]

So, game beaten. Few thoughts :
- Best final boss of the series by far. Boss fights above the average of the series, there's only a couple of 'em that felt totally bland (in comparision to DS2 and its legion of meh bosses).
- Most linear game of the series concerning the grand scheme of things. There are a lot of branching paths, but it ultimately requires you to clear some levels in a predefinite order.
- Least linear level design of the series. Not a single corridor-level among the 11 ones I've cleared (realised afterward I totally missed one of 'em, you probably know which one). They're all 3-dimensional labyrynths, some are only partly so, but still are at some degree. No Izalith-like linearity there.
- Solid itemization thanks to the welcome return to the Demon's Souls "no armor upgrade" formula. Unfortunately like the two other Dark Souls (and unlike Demon's Souls), there's not enough specific requirements for monsters/bosses. A zweihander will do the job from the moment you get it to the end. I kinda miss Demon's Souls thematic levels with specific pros and cons to damage types and resistances.
- Don't understand jack shit about the story, it's full of fan service that feels out of place and it simply seems that they backpedal'd from Dark Souls 2 interesting take on the narration. Kinda disappointing there.
- NPCs seem to all have some sort of stuff going on. To avoid spoilers, and since I only managed to trigger a few of all the related events, let's just say there's more CnC in Dark Souls 3 than in most actual rpgs
- Holy fucking shit the multiplayer is totally wasted. Invaded something like 50 times so far, in all kind of places, and I've never, ever, felt upon a single dude. 80% of the time, it was three guys, 15% of the time it was two guys and 5% of the time it wa... your target has entered the critical fight, return to your world. OK !

 

[Utgard-Loki]

the essence of dark souls 3 can be found in the irithyl(?) dungeon. an enemy that drains your max HP with a deceptively staggering melee attack AND a grab. it is here where we can finally put the skills we learned in the beginning of the game to the test: run in, and spam r1, spam r1 like nothing has spammed before, and only ever stop...so you can roll.

i'm drawing the line here, this is the end of my playthrough.

 

[Alienman]

How can pain have a stench?

The pain of getting hit by a dung pile.

 

[toro]

 

[Perkel]

 

[Perkel]

the essence of dark souls 3 can be found in the irithyl(?) dungeon. an enemy that drains your max HP with a deceptively staggering melee attack AND a grab. it is here where we can finally put the skills we learned in the beginning of the game to the test: run in, and spam r1, spam r1 like nothing has spammed before, and only ever stop...so you can roll.

i'm drawing the line here, this is the end of my playthrough.

They only do that when they switch to red glow. You have to take them from behind. They are also blind as fuck so you can basically ignore most of them.

 

[Mortmal]

Is the Irithyll straight sword good?

I know that it does frost damage. I was thinking of using my twinkling titanite on it and either using it as my main. Or as a backup to my Astora straight sword.

Not so much as dark blade or even refined longsword as it doesnt scale as good , so yes you get a bit of frost damge but that doesnt compensate it.Same problem with most weapons there's a few worth picking, most of them no one will ever upgrade .

 

[Murk]

So uhh... anyone else notice the whole "knight on all fours" theme? What's the deal, did they love sif that much?

 

[Seethe]

the essence of dark souls 3 can be found in the irithyl(?) dungeon. an enemy that drains your max HP with a deceptively staggering melee attack AND a grab. it is here where we can finally put the skills we learned in the beginning of the game to the test: run in, and spam r1, spam r1 like nothing has spammed before, and only ever stop...so you can roll.

i'm drawing the line here, this is the end of my playthrough.

I hope you are joking. Those are the easiest enemies in the game because they turn so slowly and they die in 3 hits. The only annoying thing is facing those 5 ones in the same room because you need to pull them and wait for your health to restore.

 

[Immortal]

Estoc confirmed to be one of the most trolly pvp weapons in the game.. They seriously need to nerf that weapon..

the essence of dark souls 3 can be found in the irithyl(?) dungeon. an enemy that drains your max HP with a deceptively staggering melee attack AND a grab. it is here where we can finally put the skills we learned in the beginning of the game to the test: run in, and spam r1, spam r1 like nothing has spammed before, and only ever stop...so you can roll.

i'm drawing the line here, this is the end of my playthrough.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

I hope you are joking. Those are the easiest enemies in the game because they turn so slowly and they die in 3 hits. The only annoying thing is facing those 5 ones in the same room because you need to pull them and wait for your health to restore.

if my argument was "the game is far too difficult" you would have a point, but since my argument is "this game has retarded design" you don't.

yeah, you can run up to them and then r1 rape them, because you can do that with basically every enemy in the game.

do yourself a favour and get some fucking reading comprehension.

 

[Immortal]

I hope you are joking. Those are the easiest enemies in the game because they turn so slowly and they die in 3 hits. The only annoying thing is facing those 5 ones in the same room because you need to pull them and wait for your health to restore.

if my argument was "the game is far too difficult" you would have a point, but since my argument is "this game has retarded design" you don't.

yeah, you can run up to them and then r1 rape them, because you can do that with basically every enemy in the game.

do yourself a favour and get some fucking reading comprehension.

You can shoot them with a bow.. or sneak attack them... there is nothing wrong with the design.. you just don't personally like it.
Which is fine.. uninstall the game and play something else.

Just don't expect everyone to sit down shake their heads and go "damnit he's right! this game is shit!" even if the design was bad.. you deal with that enemy for about 20 minutes in a 40 hour game.

Different strokes for different folks.