From Software Dark Souls 3

[Wunderbar]

I don't see why we should expect consistent, steady difficulty increases throughout their games...

dark souls 3 is so painfully linear, one would expect Fromsoft to actually use this linearity to build a proper difficulty curve. alas

 

[cvv]

You simply NEED to have traditional diff. options coz what is a sleep inducing cakewalk for some is a rage inducing, unsurmountable obstacle for others.

summoning

That's my point. The "summoning" solution to difficulty is interesting but ultimately flawed.

In most cases there's no middle ground. You go from "fuck your artificial difficulty Miyazaki boss is impossible to solo" to "ok guise let's get this motherfucker, wait till I apply this buff and....bwaaaang HEIR OF FIRE DESTROYED".

Not ideal.

 

[Wunderbar]

cvv npc summons aren't as OP as real players, but still provide decent help by serving as a distraction.

 

[D_X]

Dork Souls didn't need a difficulty slider because it worked great until ds3 shat the bed and memezaky in his infinite wisdom threw out 90% of the previous games to focus exclusively on combat. In a system where combat is pedestrian and was not the main focus.

 

[Elwro]

The real DS3 crime is super / hyper armor. The fact that such a mechanic is hidden, with no clues, and makes just no sense is simply inexcusable. You can't learn it in-game properly, to understand what you're doing -- you either encounter it randomly or you read / watch videos about it. Shame!

 

[Matador]

The real DS3 crime is super / hyper armor. The fact that such a mechanic is hidden, with no clues, and makes just no sense is simply inexcusable. You can't learn it in-game properly, to understand what you're doing -- you either encounter it randomly or you read / watch videos about it. Shame!

100%, forgot to post about hyper armor.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I'm eager to see his reactions to the boss .

Pontiff Sulyvann was considerably easier than getting to the second bonfire in the area. Once I actually got into the map it wasn't so bad but holy fucking shit that first bit was bullshit. The Pontiff himself took about 6 or 7 tries. Getting through those bastards was another story. It must have taken 20 or 30 tries but I killed every last fucking one of them. When something fucks me off that bad it has to die, there's no running past.

Here's the Pontiff. I just swapped all my flasks to red and tanked through it. I don't mind using cheese strats on a first playthrough. I don't expect to be good at this yet:

So I just got to Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. What the fuck? I've seen difficulty spikes before but this has to be some kind of a joke, some kind of a mistake. I went from one shotting skeletons and vigor tanking my way through the crocodile thing to this? Fuck this shit if the rest of the game is like this I'm not finishing it.

I told you playing ds3 is a mistake.
What's your build, weapons, rings?

I'm playing as a vigorchad. My rings suck because I haven't found any that really support my build and playstyle. I'm using the untrue dark ring because I'm hollow but don't really want a helm, the blue tearstone ring which I'm never taking off, the life ring and normally the knight slayer's ring but I swapped that for the flame stoneplate ring in that map because there was so much fire. Starting class deprived, my stats are as follows:

Level 58
Vigor: 30
Attunement: 14
Endurance: 27
Vitality: 10
Strength: 21
Dexterity: 13
Intelligence: 10
Faith: 12
Luck: 10

I like my build. I can take a hit and my +6 heavy spiked mace really fucks shit up these days. I can now swing it 3 times and roll out, just. That will do while I put some points into strength. I'm thinking at my upgrade level I might start getting some benefit from that.

The most I've done on any other boss is 3 IIRC. The bosses just haven't gotten hard until now. I find the groups of regular enemies much harder. There are so many! But I'm enjoying the game a lot. I was very angry when I made that post. Justifiably so, that section is bullshit. But I've had a blast with everything else and I think this is an excellent game so far.

 

[Elwro]

Pontiff is fun! But have you tried fighting the NPC invader near the 2nd bonfire?

 

[Matador]

Pontiff is Ok. A little overdone, but is satisfying boss to beat.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Pontiff is fun! But have you tried fighting the NPC invader near the 2nd bonfire?

I'd only run into one of those before. I just figured out its because I don't use embers. I went and found him. His damage is... really something:

 

[D_X]

Bloodeyes - that was a pretty good Pontiff fight, gg.
Alva is a cunt, but the Murakumo does hit hard. Last time I played ds3 I went there to get it as soon as I could and finished both the base game and the dlcs with it. Only switched to the Exile Greatsword in ng+.

I still don't get why you need those spells, those points in attunement and faith would be better placed in strenght.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

The real DS3 crime is super / hyper armor. The fact that such a mechanic is hidden, with no clues, and makes just no sense is simply inexcusable. You can't learn it in-game properly, to understand what you're doing -- you either encounter it randomly or you read / watch videos about it. Shame!

WHAAT?! I knew there were problems with how staggering works in DS3 and I disliked that the game promotes "who attacks first wins" approach, but I didn't knew there was a whole mechanic build around it. I though it was all caused by some mistakes made in neighboring systems, not conscious choices. Why? Miyazaki, why?

 

[Bloodeyes]

Bloodeyes - that was a pretty good Pontiff fight, gg.
Alva is a cunt, but the Murakumo does hit hard. Last time I played ds3 I went there to get it as soon as I could and finished both the base game and the dlcs with it. Only switched to the Exile Greatsword in ng+.

I still don't get why you need those spells, those points in attunement and faith would be better placed in strenght.

I suck at the dodge timings as you can see in the above vids. The principles are all the same as ER but the timings are subtly different. Its a lot easier in ER, at least I find it easier. I'll adjust, but until then I need lots of healing. My estus is currently +5 and I get more healing from 2 casts of Heal than 1 estus. The status curing spell is less useful than Heal, but it was great to have in both the swamp and the cathedral, where I was frequently inflicted with that status that makes you bleed repeatedly and could just cure it easily. Both spells have been well worth the investment.

I'm actually going a little further into FTH. I'm going up to 15 fth, 18 attunement. 18 attunement will give me 1 exta cast of Heal per blue flask, which is 3 extra heals per rest. 15 fth will give me a regen spell so I get more benefit out of the Lloyds rings, which provide excellent bonuses but I lose them too much due to taking damage. That way I don't have to heal the chips and I'll eventually get my damage and negation bonus back. I may even infuse and upgrade a blessed dagger for my offhand then 2h my weapon so I get some passive regen that stacks with the spell to hurry things along a bit.

I do plan to invest in STR. I'm taking it to 40 so I hit the softcap when I 2h. I've just left it at requirements until now because my weapon wasn't upgraded that much.

 

[D_X]

, where I was frequently inflicted with that status that makes you bleed repeatedly and could just cure it easily.

A little tip if you ever revisit that area: The continuous bleed effect is caused by the maggots those crawling things throw on you. Bring a torch.

 

[Caim]

Did mods break for anyone else as well? Cinders won't work anymore since the recent multiplayer patch, how about the others?

 

[Silverfish]

I still don't get why you need those spells, those points in attunement and faith would be better placed in strenght.

Faith is the better long term investment. Raise strength early on, and when the Lothric Knight greatsword becomes available, slap a blessed gem on it. You get variety from the miracles and an overpowered weapon on top.

 

[D_X]

I still don't get why you need those spells, those points in attunement and faith would be better placed in strenght.

Faith is the better long term investment. Raise strength early on, and when the Lothric Knight greatsword becomes available, slap a blessed gem on it. You get variety from the miracles and an overpowered weapon on top.

Long term maybe, but early on I just don't see the use in raising faith to cast heal when you could use the points for more damage, health or stamina. Even if you don't do the shrine jump, there's still an estus shard in the high wall and one immediately after in the settlement and bonfires are all over the place. Then, once you grab a few levels and miracles and whatever else you need, it's just a short trip to Rosaria to respec.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying faith is useless or criticizing builds.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I still don't get why you need those spells, those points in attunement and faith would be better placed in strenght.

Faith is the better long term investment. Raise strength early on, and when the Lothric Knight greatsword becomes available, slap a blessed gem on it. You get variety from the miracles and an overpowered weapon on top.

Long term maybe, but early on I just don't see the use in raising faith to cast heal when you could use the points for more damage, health or stamina. Even if you don't do the shrine jump, there's still an estus shard in the high wall and one immediately after in the settlement and bonfires are all over the place. Then, once you grab a few levels and miracles and whatever else you need, it's just a short trip to Rosaria to respec.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying faith is useless or criticizing builds.

I put two points into faith. Two. I went to 20 vigor and 18 end first. Then I took requirements for the spiked mace. I mean I actually went to 11 str 16 dex first because my first weapon after the club was the uchigatana but it didn't suit my playstyle so I switched to str. For most of my playthrough those 2 points have given me a lot more healing, which allowed me to do a lot of exploration in the poison swamp without having to spend anything on the curative item. If I'd put 6 points in STR when my weapon was at +2 or +3, which it has been until recently, I would have got next to nothing in AR from that.

Taking a small amount of vigor and END first to be early game tanky, then taking weapon and spell requirements, then pumping vigor to the moon, then levelling AR for the rest of the game. That's how I progress my builds in ER. Its optimal in that game and its working in this game.

20 vigor vas more than enough for me in the early game because I was tanking most hits easily and my estus was healing half or less of my health bar. So a longer bar offered little value without the estus to fill it.

Casting heal outside of combat and saving estus for in combat is a good strategy, especially when you use a big slow weapon and end up trading a lot. Could I get by without it? Sure, I could manage. But the game would be harder as I'd have to homeward bone and retry things more and I'd have less flasks left when I found bosses. I've first tried several bosses just because I had 3 or 4 estus left when I first discovered them. I was even able to cast heal during the fight with the curse rotted greatwood because it gives you enough breathing space to do that. So I got that one second try despite getting hit a lot.

 

[D_X]

I put two points into faith. Two....

This is why I specifically mentioned I was not criticizing anything, so chill out, bro.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I still don't get why you need those spells, those points in attunement and faith would be better placed in strenght.

Faith is the better long term investment. Raise strength early on, and when the Lothric Knight greatsword becomes available, slap a blessed gem on it. You get variety from the miracles and an overpowered weapon on top.

Why blessed and not heavy? I'd surely get more AR from heavy because of the 2h bonus. My plan was to make a STR build with minimal investment in FTH for utility. I just assumed a caster would be weaker unless you know well how to optimize one and I wanted to make the strongest build I could for my first run. But at 21 STR I'm still at requirements for my weapon. I could go either way. Other than variety what would I get from a more evenly split STR/FTH hybrid, or even a DEX/FTH hybrid?

 

[Silverfish]

Long term maybe, but early on I just don't see the use in raising faith to cast heal when you could use the points for more damage, health or stamina.

Fair enough, but damage isn't a huge deal early game (buffs, raw / fire infusions, poison / bleed), so mixing in faith to get some extra healing, a decent ranged spell and the admittedly situational force miracle to go with health and stamina wouldn't gimp your character.

Why blessed and not heavy?

Weapons with innate lightning damage get a pretty meaty bonus from blessed infusions, and are in fact the only weapons that do. So you'd get the usual advantages of a greatsword (reach, stagger, versatile moveset) along with good damage and passive healing.

Other than variety what would I get from a more evenly split STR/FTH hybrid, or even a DEX/FTH hybrid?

Other than variety? Nothing. But the variety is pretty good.

 

[Multidirectional]

For me Sekiro was a breath of fresh air, because you could punish hard that kind of behaviour, in a very satisfying way, with well timed parries, and it is a hard game. Souls games are not made to be funny with those enemy patterns.

And difficulty in Sekiro is probably only as well designed as it is because it's the first game of its kind. If they make sequels to it they would likely go full retard with it too.

 

[vibehunter]

I recently tried to get back into Dark Souls 3 but I discovered that there is a small, but noticeable, input delay when you hit the roll button. I've read that this is because both roll and sprint are bound to the same button. I don't why I never noticed this when I first beat the game years ago, but this time around it is quite jarring and unpleasant for me, especially coming off of games like Nioh 2 where the dodge action is instantaneous. Apparently this issue also exists in Elden Ring, but I can't confirm that as I haven't played it.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I recently tried to get back into Dark Souls 3 but I discovered that there is a small, but noticeable, input delay when you hit the roll button. I've read that this is because both roll and sprint are bound to the same button. I don't why I never noticed this when I first beat the game years ago, but this time around it is quite jarring and unpleasant for me, especially coming off of games like Nioh 2 where the dodge action is instantaneous. Apparently this issue also exists in Elden Ring, but I can't confirm that as I haven't played it.

I've noticed this! Damn I knew I wasn't just rolling late but I told myself I was just making excuses. Elden Ring doesn't have this issue. If it does it must be a slight thing because I played ER daily for most of last year and when I was late on rolls I was just late.

The game does eat some inputs though. It happens a lot with jump attacks, where you'll either jump and not attack or attack but not jump. It also happens with two stage weapon arts. Things like the straight sword "stance" called "square off" in ER and the uchigatana's "unsheathe". You do the first part and load up then just stand there like a wanker and the second bit doesn't come out, even at full stamina. I double tap every time on these WAs but it doesn't prevent this.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Tears of denial is amazing. I looked at the wiki and found the lake of embers. I recast tears twice during the fight with the old demon king. That means I died twice, but I didn't die. I won.