I’ve interpreted the change in difficulty as being intentional and in the same spirit as the golden leaves in Mario 3D World: a deliberate escape valve for stuck players as an alternative to quitting in frustration.
LOL at the idea that anyone playing a Souls game should ever be considered “casual”.
I knew I should’ve used a different word there to avoid triggering anyone’s internet debate instinct, “carefree” was a better choice but I just didn’t want to repeat myself
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No, that is fair, and I wasn’t trying to start a debate or anything. It’s just that silly creeping “hardcore” talk that seems unique to Souls conversation that rubs me the wrong way.
Also just like, if investing like 40 hours into something is “casual”, man, our hobby has a Problem.
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the DLC is $6 for PS+ people now if you want the full experience
i think it’s worth it for the Research Hall alone personally
frankly i think i’ve played games at higher level than nearly everyone else on this website and i instinctively want to punch the ‘git gud’ mindset that pervades a lot of soulsborne discourse
games are about experiences, not skill. they’re about what you go through, the trials and tribulations thereof, the things you learn about the game and about yourself, the surprises.
it’s about the horribly mutated friends we make along the way, is what i’m sayin’
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Yeah git gud fucking sucks, end videogames gatekeeping
ya even more than DkS1, the expansion for BB is essential. fuck that last boss tho
if any new folks did pick up the DLC, you can access it way before you’re strong enough to fight anything there. it’s worth trying to run past some of the wildly strong enemies in the first area to pick up a few of the new weapons. the saif is my fav of the saw-style weapons & the boom hammer is wonderful anime nonsense
So I now have… 189 or so blood vials. That should hopefully last me for a bit >_>
Also, in the further adventures of me not paying attention to significant gameplay mechanics, I had assumed that blood gem fortification was like the specialized upgrade branches in the Souls games and had never bothered to really look at it as I wasn’t sure if I wasn’t gonna try another weapon at some point. Long story short, I’m now hitting for noticeably more damage and that is nice.
Update: I think I’ve got enough of a handle on things that my personal difficulty level has swung back down to the more typical Souls range. A lot of that was due to just gathering enough vials to heal when I want to but man, upgrading a weapon an extra time plus putting some blood gems on it really swings the math of the boss battles.
The one boss that sent me running elsewhere a while back because it felt hopeless I beat on my first rematch, the boss before that I took out on my first try (to be fair, that witch seemed rather easy) and even the one that gave me some trouble before that I think I got on my third try. Realizing that when they are stunned, even if not from a parry, that they can still be viscerally attacked (I of course spent all the game up to this realization trying to back thrust them, which doesn’t work) also made a big difference.
I feel like I’m running into a lot of dead ends, or paths that just lead to someplace I’d already been. The Souls games probably did the same to a similar degree but they did a better job establishing something like “go kill the 4 great bosses” so that you knew that they were a clear end of a path and a big accomplishment. Here I keep thinking I’m gonna gain access to a big new area to explore and it’s just a single room with an item in it or a gate that leads back to the very start or the game.
Chikage’s a much better weapon with 50 Bloodtinge. There’s still a lot of fights where you just can’t get an opening to go ham though, so I can’t say as I’m a huge fan of it relative to other, more balanced weapons. That being said, uh, at 43 Skill/50 Bloodtinge it sure did chew up NG+ Mergo’s Wet Nurse like butter. Blood attacks seem particularly strong against enemies in that area in general though.
It definitely feels like a weapon you want to focus on for NG+ rather than NG, though. It’s pretty underwhelming without high stats to scale with.
There’s something really satisfying about running up and doing the L1~R1 attack on a group though. Especially since that attack has enough force to knock many enemies down. (Normal transformed R1 doesn’t!)
Touching on a familiar theme, I seemingly ran out of paths forward again. Hypogean Gaol seems to have nothing there, and beating the boss only opens up a path back to a former place. The nightmare building and frontier was pretty swell, but it just seems to lead you to a chalice. The forbidden woods lead to Byrgenwerth, which lead to an old guy on a balcony pointing towards a place and a message about a low blood red moon lessening the line between beast and man. The healing church ward door is still closed. I killed the lass at the clinic and that didn’t seem to help.
Now I looked up online what to do next (I considered it, but the note nearby made me think I had to return later) and jeez, I have no idea if I am just terrible at picking up the hints the game is dropping or if it is much sloppier than the Souls games were at pointing the way forward.
Hmm, I naturally discovered that, but I don’t remember exactly by what process at this point. I can understand getting stuck there.
Reconstructing what I think happened on my first playthrough, I was a bit confused by the situation and I think I even left and came back, but IIRC there is a fog door there and that’s what tipped me off I wasn’t done in that spot. Then if you angle the camera, it’s clear it’s worth trying a leap of faith. And then Byrgenwerth is short so I wasn’t terrified of how much progress I may lose there if it’s a red herring.
I think it’s a calculated design risk to give the player the sense of cosmic mystery, without being random couldn’t-have-known bullshit.
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sock the old guy one for me
i was like “oh hell yeah i get to jump into THE MOON” and took a running leap off the edge almost immediately after he pointed, which should give you an idea how i approach videogames that ask me to do really stupid things
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I killed the old man thinking he was going to turn into the boss. Whoops
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I love how simultaneously confident-in-videogame-logic and absurdly sociopathic that is, in a way that only becomes clear if you’re wrong
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Bum bum ba bum bum bummmmmm… I got Bloodborne
At the risk of treading over well-worn ground… Do y’all have good tips for a Bloodborne beginner? I’ve played Dark Souls 1 and 2, so I have some background in these games, but I always appreciate helpful tips and tricks for delightfully obscurantist and cruel FROM games.
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BE AGGRESSIVE
B-E AGGRESSIVE
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