Dark Souls 3 - April 2016 : You Died, You Died, You Died

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HIxuGi_2TQ

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/09/16/hands-on-with-dark-souls-iiis-new-magic-system.aspx

that crowned skull looming out of the darkness at 1:24 is giving me the serious heebie-jeebies

psyched for this obv

coma until March, please

i signed up for the beta network test

same. if i get in i look forward to explaining to my gf why i have to play video games for three hours on a Friday night.

ditto

japan needs me

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-09-17-dark-souls-3-is-a-surprisingly-different-beast

Critical Arts are special attacks tailored to each weapon and available when you're two-handing. With a scimitar, for example, you launch into a dervish of blades, while a greatsword can be used to launch enemies comically high into the air. There's a magic meter sitting between your health and stamina bar, a throwback to Demon's Souls own approach, and performing critical arts as well as summoning spells eats into this. Restoring MP's more straightforward than the spice gathering of Demon's Souls, too - you've now got in your possession a second, blue estus flask that can be glugged to top up that bar.

Hoping this comes out for PC also.

they make too many of these games

it'll have been two years since the last dark souls came out by the time this is released, and four-and-a-half since the first one was released - it's not exactly fifa in the churning-them-out stakes

but also bloodborne! that's one every 1.5 years

three games in one series, each with their own subtly different take on the template, and one offshoot with distinct differences in its combat system and overarching theme, all packed with content - i dunno, i'm happy to play them as regularly as they come out as long as the level of quality remains this high

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyd8dY8rRtA

If Bloodborne is any indication then this is going to be the best souls game yet.

http://cdn.yourepeat.com/media/gif/000/085/261/88fed98d30151cb92ae8c81165ac80f8.gif

I'm in on the beta!

nice! i didn't get in, but at least i don't have to explain why i'm cancelling all Friday night plans now.

yeah, there's a conversation i'm looking forward to.

have You Died yet?

testing is fri/sat/sun from 8pm to 11pm

should i liveblog tonight, y/n

just post I DIED every time you get killed

k

y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcAa8gHHfg4

fucks sake, this is 8pm PACIFIC
which is 11pm until 1 in the morning.

still not working...

a quick look around reddit and the internet suggests it's borked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyARBkovYCw&

i died about six times. this looks fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=c2EJMd7ZN7w#t=253

http://i.imgur.com/NmX9h6f.gif

that's pretty much my dark souls experience except i'd be getting stuck in the corner and accidentally rolling off a cliff, too

if it ended with the rolling guy running out of stamina then getting one-shotted by his opponent it'd be more true to my dark souls experiences for sure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI09ZVuX5XI

looks predictably fuckin' awesome.

cool that you can kinda go into Bloodborne-mode using those knife/bow weapon arts.

i dunno about you but what i really needed was a dark souls branded endless runner for my phone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LputQewHUIw

lol.

it's getting really hard to avoid knowing more about this game than i want to. truly excited.

feel like today opened the floodgates of early game DS3 footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igWjGlNlgH0

so far it looks really good. a bunch of references to Dark Souls get spoiled in the above video btw.

i have seen some people freak out (not here of course) that it isn't a totally interconnected world like Dark Souls was. except Dark Souls wasn't. Undead Asylum was cut off from the rest of the world, so was Anor Londo, so was the Painted World.

i think the areas themselves will be bigger and more intricately designed. already just from watching this footage it looks 100x better than the starting Betwixt/Forest Of The Fallen Giants areas from DS2.

cannot wait to die.

i'm not worried about it. i know there's warping from the beginning, and Although I did love the parts of Dark Souls where it felt like you really might not be able to get back (like going down into Blighttown or the Great Hollow for the first time), I'm sure they know what they're doing.

I'm also super excited for pvp in this game. I never really did it in DS1 because i missed the learning curve (everyone still playing was already way too experienced for me to even learn from my mistakes, it seemed like), and by the time i wanted to go back and try, I didn't have XBL anymore. I kinda sucked at DS2 and didn't want to keep playing it after finishing, and played Demon's Souls offline on a borrowed PS3. But Bloodborne is where I finally did enough pvp to mentally relax and not care about dying (which is really 90% of it), and learn some of the psychological tricks (switching up attacks & weapons, not repeating attacks on people who will parry you, baiting people into getting parried, etc). Feel like this is going to transfer over to DS3 pretty well.

Worst parts of being into these games:

1) Looking at Reddit for info. I'd never actually looked at it before Bloodborne came out and the depressing parts definitely creep in.

2) Most people who make Souls videos are into terrible music.

3) Occasional hate mail from children when playing online.

Do these games have a story? And is there a larger, interconnected story?

they have a story but it's really up to the player to piece it together.

as for are the games connected there are many theories and i thought the world of 2 was largely completely disconnected from the world of 1 but 3 has a lot of things returning from 1 so who knows maybe we will be playing in the past or future of places we have been to before. the first game was tightly directed by creator Hidetaka Miyazaki, then he took on a more supervisory role for 2 so that he could make Bloodborne at the same time. 3 looks like it will be a return to form in many ways receiving his full attention and his intention for it to be the final game in the series. so chances are good there will be some overarching story themes concluded or fleshed out.

imo dark souls 1 starts when you are cursed/hollowed/undead. the main mechanic of the games - dying over and over - is part of the story. as a hollow you cannot die; that is your curse. this is the same with all of your non-boss enemies and many of the NPCs that populate the world. how this curse is tied into the king-queen-god-monsters whose thrones you usurp remains to be seen. the motivations for many characters, including the "helpful" ones who guide you, is unclear. the writing and voice acting is pretty great. then there are the major themes of the series: the meaning between Light and Dark, the flames, the bonfires and kindling, death and rebirth, etc.

i've beaten the two Dark Souls games multiple times and can barely grasp the story. there is a lot of symbolism and ambiguity there. if you want there are dozens of hours of lore analysis waiting for you on youtube.

i think from software's games are some of the greatest examples of environmental storytelling in gaming history tbh

what adam said, but basically the story is very vague and easy to miss/ignore (both the main one and those of the characters you meet). a lot of it has to do with reading the descriptions of the items you pick up.

i also love how it's done, partially because i like the option to completely ignore it much of the time. they provide just enough details to create atmosphere and let you fill in the gaps.

there is massive complex deep lore if you want it and it's totally not necessary to know while you play.
http://soulslore.wikidot.com/

Beat Aldrich third try. I think I got lucky, because it was only when it was over that I noticed I had no more estus!

Some thoughts right now, having spent a minute in the Profaned Capital: boy, does Dark Souls 3 lean in to the DS reputation. There are lots of enemies that are just perversely difficult or annoying, like invisible enemies, or enemies that suddenly reduce your health bar, or super powerful enemies in cramped rooms (like those fire monsters in the hallway or the giant in the room with respawning rat waves) that you can take down if you really want but which pretty much encourage you to run past, tons of mimics or other things that basically pick you up and chew you up. Having that OP giant alligator dog monster spawn out of nowhere *behind you* in Irithyll, for example, is like a DS programmer in-joke or something. There are of course features that help you out in this game, though, so I guess it's all about the balance.

Unlike the first game, in this game so far Firelink is a pretty lonely place. There used to be a bunch of folks there to keep me company, but not anymore. Weird pilgrim guy is dead and just there. Bloodborne guy has been gone for a while. I had to kill Horace and accidentally had to kill Anri, so they're not there. There's the hooded guy who vanishes for long stretches. There's the sad sorcerer woman who I have no need to talk with. I think I may have missed something important to continue Onion Knight's quest. It's just me, the Firekeeper, the woman selling stuff and Andre. I have no idea whether Patches will show up, but that guy is a dick, anyway.

I think there's a version in which there are a lot more people there, but the npc questlines are pretty inscrutable in this version (I think many require some degree of backtracking, which there's usually no other reason to do).

After my first playthrough the only one I bother with is Sirris, because I can't live without the silvercat ring.

How perverse that after the Giant, which more or less tells you how to beat it and gives that tool to you (still took me a couple of tries to get the rhythm down!), they transport you almost immediately to another, much harder boss fight. Grrr.

That's a good FROM joke. Dancer is definitely one of the harder bosses in the game, if you're underpowered (you can actually access her at the beginning of the game, if you kill the old lady in that room).

Dancer was great. totally took the cowards route by running in sheer panic from pillar to pillar and getting the hits in when i could.

I've only just been introduced to her...

I think I got her on the fifth try! She actually wasn't that bad? I've been mostly using a black knight sword at +3, which is still better than my claymore+7. I got her down pretty low, but I was sloppy. Getting up close to her seemed to do the trick, that and rolling around like an idiot.

I have to admit, one of the reasons I like watching YouTube playthroughs is that I barely remember the fights, I'm in such a state of both concentration and panic.

Dragonslayer Armour, I got him close to one hit away from defeat my first time, but felt confident enough that I could do it again that I just summoned Egon to get it over with. Now I'm at Grand Archives, and it's a bit more ... mysterious. I have a feeling there is a lot to find/defeat.

Oh, also will need to double back to the Painted World at some point, plus Consumed King's Garden, which I briefly popped into earlier.

> I'm at Grand Archives

home to an all time great contextual action button prompt

Dip head in wax?

yep

somewhat surprised with how much less i remember about ds3 vs ds1, despite having played 3 more recently than 1

What I love about this game is that when faced with the prompt "dip head in wax," you just do it. It never says why to do it, you just know it's the right thing to do. And you may never learn why. But in this case, you do.

dipping your head in wax is, in fact, u&k

Recently learned by accident that if you quit out when your head is covered in wax, it shows on the character load menu next time.

When do I tackle the DLC? Before or after main game? Snowy place was introduced hours and several bosses ago.

After, tbh. It's tuned for that imo, maybe they put the guy in the chapel for lore reasons.

Gotta say, I love how inscrutable all the lore is.

i think I'm creeping toward the (a?) end, give or take the DLC and some other stuff. I just killed three fat angel-monsters on the top of a roof, there's a big staircase full of enemies on the way to what must be a boss in the Grand Archives. Plus there's a swamp to explore near/under Lothric Castle. Then I need to do snow land and ... some other DLC. Ringed City? I'm sure there's another final boss, too. I've got a black knight sword up to +5, my claymore (which seems to do less damage than the BKS but has a slightly faster moveset, plus can be buffed, which I generally don't do) up to +8, plus a host of other weapons I can upgrade if I want. My stats are creeping up with each round, too, but not sure how much they matter at this point. In a sense once you hit a level where you no longer need to bother with a shield that pretty much means you're ready for anything this game can throw at you, imo.

Btw, DS3 seems to have more than a few enemies that appear to be on par with a boss, in terms of difficulty and damage they do. I suppose just slightly less HP and no dramatic music.

Now those twin princes ... those dudes are tough. May wait to take them on tomorrow.

Oof, this boss. This might be the first one this game to make me feel seriously underpowered. I'm not, of course, but it's just kicking my ass in a way that no other DS3 boss has really done it. Doesn't appear to be a summon sign for this one, either (and for that matter this may be the first/only boss that talks to you/taunts you), so I guess I'm on my own. I've made it to the second stage once or twice so at least I know that part is possible, but ... yeah, I need to figure this one out.

OK, a primo example of non-intuitive (afaict) DS3 bullshittery. After dying to the Two Princes ... a bunch, I decide to ember up and find the summon sign. There is always a summon sign. But ... not this time. Die a bunch more and finally decide to see what's up. I look it up and it turns out there is no summons because I did not complete the Sirris quest. (Who I forgot existed. I met her once in Firelink, and like everyone else there she vanished, so I figured that was that.) Fine, gotta do the Sirris quest if I want any help. Now, I don't play embered, because I die too much, but it turns out there is a summons sign on the bridge to Irytthal, after you kill the wolf dog. I find it, *she* summons *me* (is this new to DS3?), I kick the other NPC's ass, and she thanks me. Now it turns out that first I have to go back to Firelink and have her thank me *again*. Um, ok. Then it turns out there is a *second* quest, and that I need to be summoned *again* outside of where I killed the Giant Tree. Fine, I do that and help her. Then you have to go back to Firelink *again* and have her pledge loyalty. OK, good to go! Except ... her summon is still not there. Because it turns out first I need to go back to the one place where I killed Hodrick and grab his armor, and *then* I have to go to a grave outside Firelink and grab his shield. Or so I assume, because I haven't tried for the Twins again.

Now, how was I supposed to know to do all that? Even if I was playing embered I don't think it would have triggered all these things I needed to do, I had to know I needed to backtrack, afaict. And that's probably true, I suppose, for all of the other Firelink peeps that have vanished.

I think there's a version in which there are a lot more people there, but the npc questlines are pretty inscrutable in this version (I think many require some degree of backtracking, which there's usually no other reason to do).

After my first playthrough the only one I bother with is Sirris, because I can't live without the silvercat ring.

― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, January 14, 2020 9:28 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

And as you know, all bosses can be beaten solo if you learn their patterns. :)

Oh, I've beaten most solo. I've only summoned once or twice after getting bored, usually of the walk back to the boss.

My equipped rings are usually endurance boost, Havel, ring of favor and then some other ring. For Twin Princes I've also used the one for more I frames, or the estus boost. But they kill me pretty quickly.

The biggest problem I've had with the Twin Princes is, either by design or, er, lack of design, camera-related. That is, the boss keeps popping up some distance away from me, but behind me, which is to say, behind the camera, so I have to spin or tumble around wildly looking for it, and that's when it teleports and kills me, or unleashes that blast and kills me. At first I thought a better shield would help, and it does, to some extent. But managing endurance seems to be a bigger issue, to let me repeatedly tumble away to safety. Even Sirris (who I think is meant/guaranteed to die midway through the fight) gives only a little boost of help, in the first stage. But if every other time I've summoned for help has made a fight pretty easy, this is the first time it only makes it a little easier. But still not easy! I'm sure I'll defeat them today, but boy am I sick of taking that elevator up and making sure it is primed to take me the correct direction again after I die.

It's been ages since I've done this fight, but from what I remember it's best done without locking on (because of the teleporting). You get better camera control this way but it takes a little practice. Also I believe you have to be extremely non-greedy, I remember limiting myself to one hit at a time (except when he's down and you're desperately trying to damage the paraplegic prince, of course).

I have no idea why, but this boss is giving me more trouble than literally any boss in DS1 or DS3 so far, except for maybe Artorias of the Abyss. But will definitely try keeping lock off.

Watched someone do it and the big things seem to be 1) only doing 1 hit at a time, because he counterattacks so quickly, and you don't want to be trading hits or not have enough endurance to roll, and 2) surviving those homing magic missiles at the beginning of the second phase, and then staying as close as possible so he doesn't keep casting them?

Also things like rolling into him rather than away, so that you can get in a swing between his attacks.

So far I've had the best luck after summoning, since Sirris bears the brunt of some of the attacks and allows me to conserve estus. But still doesn't seal the deal! (And of course adds HP to the enemy.) I tried buffing my claymore with lightning (right now, +10 heavy) but that's not much of a help. I've had better luck with the unbuffed claymore, or usually the black knight sword. Rolling is better than blocking, so I haven't really bothered with a shield. But I do seem to be making progress, in that often I make it to the second stage before dying. Hmm, maybe I'll try some different combos of rings? Ultimately I think my dodging of this guy is just off, so maybe I'll face it a few more times just to practice rolling and get out of the bad habit of panic rolling.

this is more like it. it’s been quite demoralising seeing you go through saying how do i do this, how do i do that, and then beating bosses in about five goes. weeks, *weeks* it took me sometimes.

i did just end up getting the rhythm of this boss, once you start getting past the first stage every time you know you’re going to be ok - Jordan otm when he says don’t get too greedy.

OK, I got them down this morning in two final tries (which was my plan). I played embered but with no summon (since the added boss HP was doing me no favors). I had been rolling too much, vs. just rolling once or twice as needed, so indeed I just followed the pattern and calmly avoided attacks. Dodge, hit, dodge dodge, hit, back away, dodge, hit, etc. Had the green crest shield on my back to help with endurance. I tested the approach this morning before I took my kid to school, and it got me pretty far, so when I faced them the second time I knew I could do it. And did it. One key was to hide behind the pillars (which I suppose were there for a reason lol) whenever the second stage shot all that magic at me. When I eventually staggered him off his brother and I saw how low his HP was it was totally exhilarating, which is what it's supposed to do. Dunno why, exactly, but DS3 seems to have a lot more personality than DS1, in enemy and level design, especially this end-game stuff.

Not sure where the game is going now, exactly. Offered the cinders, Firelink is now dark and empty. Does that mean I can't buy or upgrade anything anymore? I know I can go to the big end boss, or the snowy DLC, or all of the earlier parts of the game, but that last choice doesn't really seem to have a point if souls are no longer really an issue. Though I did burn through a lot of my embers in all those Twin Princes attempts, for whatever that is worth. Either way, I'm giving it a break for a couple of days.

Oh, wait, there is a swamp under Lothric to explore, iirc. Must be optional, but I'll opt to do it.

Nice, that's the way you do it!

The swampy garden is a prerequisite to the two secret areas/bosses in the game.

Actually three secret bosses, and one of the areas is pretty big & cool

But am I right that there is nothing to do with souls anymore/no way to spend them? With Firelink shut down ...

Nah I don't think that's the 'real' firelink, it's the "Kiln of the First Flame" that leads to the last boss. You should still be able to get back to good ol' Firelink.

But there's no Andre or Firekeeper afaict ...

oh wait I think I understand. I will check later.

"Now, how was I supposed to know to do all that?" is the true DS motto

Seriously. After killing the boss in the swamp/garden you're given this dragon gesture to add to your repertoire. I was under the impression I needed to fight a dragon in this game at some point, and having made it close to the end with no real dragon battle I decide to figure out what I was missing. It turns out you're supposed to go back to a balcony in a much earlier level and then make the gesture there to unlock a new area with the dragon boss at the end. Now, how was I supposed to know to do all that?

(See also: how to find Champion Gundyr and Nameless King, two other optional bosses whose reputation preceded them.)

The dragon-human statue with a conspicuously empty mat next to it was def a tip-off, I tried all my sitting gestures next to it the first time around (but only because of the crow's nest in DS1).

But did you know, many hours later, to go back there and try again?

When I eventually found the gesture called 'Path of the Dragon' with the exact same pose, yes!

(there was a quest in DS1 to turn into dragon form too btw)

Huh, I must have missed dragon quest in the first game, too. (Though I do recall fighting a dragon!) My attention of detail is just not good enough to remember that kind of stuff when I play through. I'm usually very focused on forward momentum. In fact, there are already some moments, enemies and levels I've almost totally forgotten in DS3, and when I'm reminded I suddenly flash back and recall, oh yeah, I did spend a lot of time in Spooky Town, didn't I? In a lot of ways that's another pleasure of the game, looking back at stuff you struggled with earlier and finding none of it a real threat anymore.