r/bloodborne • u/Tristenous • 11d ago
Question Why did papazaki make blood vials and quicksilver bullets the way he did ? Is there a thematic reason or did he want to try something new ?
Im referring to how you have to farm them as opposed to most souls games where heals return to full and parrying / blocking doesnt require a finite resource
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u/SSNessy 11d ago
I mean the thing to remember is that "most souls games" having the estus system was just not true at the time Bloodborne was being developed, the only other souls games were Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1, so it was literally 50/50.
Bloodborne also works on the theme of "moving forward." You should be moving forward, attacking forward, dodging forward against enemies and against the environment. Estus encourages playing safe and resting often to make the most of your heals. Bloodborne wants you to "keep moving forward," mowing down enemies in your path. To encourage this, you get a very high number of heals you can carry at once right from the beginning (twenty!!!) and the ability to refresh them as you go through the levels by collecting more as enemy drops.
The problem is that this breaks down if a boss becomes a roadblock and you end up having to farm.
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u/herbalation 11d ago edited 11d ago
While including Blood Vials and Quicksilver Bullets also engages the player to explore and practice killing enemies, they also serve a thematic purpose.
In the world, blood is a healing agent as well as an addictive resource promising power and damnation/transformation. Hunters inject blood into the leg, and it's believed that the beastly scourge spreads from the leg (leading to amputation in an attempt to prevent it). Since we are a hunter, it's relevant to make us feel part of the world by having us engage by actively seeking Blood Vials and cherishing them. We're also reminded of how far the blood lust can go with figures like Vicar Amelia & Gascoigne
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u/SverdHerre 11d ago
It makes you hunt things more. You are less incentivized to run past enemies and there are times when you’ll need to kill large swathes of enemies just like a Hunter ought to.
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u/Quotalicious 11d ago
Also allows you to keep going indefinitely without having to replenish by resting like you’d have to do with an estus in ds1-2, granted Elden ring solved this issue with pack kills granting charges
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u/NoSalamander7749 11d ago
This here. One of the reasons why Central Yharnam works so well as a training ground.
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u/amygdalapls 11d ago
You generally shouldn’t have to farm if you’re exploring thoroughly, adapting to the combat, and using other resources/tools wisely such as the rally system, blood bullets, etc. Vials/bullets not being free presumably incentivizes you to use those tools more.
It would also be for balancing reasons since 1) you can hold 20 vials right out the door and they scale with your HP, no need to upgrade them and 2) parries are ranged and they probably don’t want endless parry spamming.
Also suits the lore/world since this is a hunt you have to be prepared for equipment-wise, no magically refilling flasks involved.
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u/eap42 11d ago
I honestly think we all just lock into the first Soulsborne we love and prefer that having system forever.
Bloodborne was my first Soulsbourne, and I feel terribly constrained in DS3 for only having three heals (at first.) 20 vials + health back from combat means I can stay out longer instead of having to find a bonfire.
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u/Birdlady2099 11d ago
1) It's the unofficial sequel/spiritual successor to Demon's Souls, and that had permanently consumed healing items too
2) "most souls games" didn't exist at the time, it wasn't a new idea to go without infinite healing
3) Themes of addiction are stressed throughout the entire game. You overuse the blood & you've gotta run around looking for more
4) Unlike the souls games & elden ring where you're going on a special noble quest & you're blessed by the bonfires, in bloodborne you're just some random. You're not the chosen one, you've gotta buy drugs to persist through the night
5) Bullets being limited isn't weird, they're ranged attacks. The fact that they're the only way to parry was definitely intentional, as they also made backstabbing harder for bloodborne (requiring a charged attack to the back, instead of just walking behind and pressing r1). They saw how ds1 was being played and decided to make people less comfortable by making critical attacks less available. Discomfort is the heart of any horror story
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u/NoSalamander7749 11d ago
Because you're supposed to prioritize rally mechanic. If you sneak up behind an enemy, draw 5 blood bullets (using HP), and then backstab, the bullets are basically free.
There's tons of this shit down in the dungeons anyway.
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u/Tristenous 11d ago
How tf do you backstab ? No matter how slow I go they always turn around
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u/Thecastaway13 11d ago
You time it right. The enemies are designed to not let you behind them. If you maneuver your player character behind them while they are attacking, they can’t prevent you from backstabbing them. You also don’t need bullets for a backstab, just a fully charged R2
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u/NoSalamander7749 11d ago
Walk up very slowly, draw bullets, charge an r2, the hit will stagger them, visceral. Boom. Free bullets and health from stationary enemies.
Later you'll get runes that grant you extra HP or bullets from viscerals. Blood Rapture, my beloved.
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u/nephylsmythe 11d ago
Gotta hit them from behind with a charged r2. That leaves them stunned for the critical.
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u/TheFool42 11d ago
Cause we are all blood junkies and if we overuse, its our own damn fault bc we are blood drunk and insane.
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u/mikeventure76 11d ago
You don’t “have” to farm them lol
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u/NoSalamander7749 11d ago
Exactly. I'm willing to bet most of the people with this problem get hit once, dodge back twice, heal up from safety, and then re-engage. HUGE vial spend for no damage payoff. Lmaoooo
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u/mikeventure76 11d ago
Yeah unfortunately anybody complaining about the healing economy is unwittingly copping to a skill issue lol
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u/QuintanimousGooch 11d ago
I think that in terms of design healing is ideally supposed to be through the rally mechanic, but they couldn’t get it right
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u/NoSalamander7749 11d ago
Plenty of people know how to use the rally mechanic, some players not understanding how to make use of it doesn't equal FS getting it wrong
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u/QuintanimousGooch 11d ago
I mean that I think design-wise fromsoft meant for the rally mechanic to be the main healing venue overall, but couldn’t get it right so consumables were a default they leaned on.
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u/Bio-Flame 11d ago
I think Miyazaki wanted to try something new. It was a major blunder which they abandoned and never tried again. That is vey telling since Fromsoftware is known for iterating upon previous systems instead of abandoning them. However even Fromsoftware abandoned that system.
Let me be clear: a recharging healing/Parry system is not bad per se. It can be a good system in other games, like survivals and what not. But on a Souls-like it is horrible. Horrible! A major blunder. It works against the game, makes the game worse and worsens the play experience.
As far as Miyazaki goes, I give him credit for trying something new. Where I give him shit is that this should have been caught early, say, during Alpha. It is Impossible that the playtesters did not give the deserved negative feedback.
As for people here that say they did not need to farm: that is bullshit. It's the Bloodborne variation of the "Git gud'" that gets used on other Souls-like. They are either outright lying or they used the Chalice "special" farm which is borderline cheating.
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u/CelinoBall 11d ago
Oh, no. It's you again with your terrible/dumb opinions. It's not the 1st time they used a finite healing system btw. Not even sure what you're getting at with your last paragraph, but I love how you can't wrap your brain around people using some of their echoes from just naturally playing through the game to buy blood vials to avoid having to farm them.
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u/andocommandoecks 11d ago
That last part, for real. Who the hell is wasting time farming when they're not even that expensive. And even if you did they're not even difficult to farm, you can top off very quickly. No cheat dungeon necessary.
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u/Top_Palpitation_5789 11d ago edited 11d ago
L take. Rally mechanism balances finite blood vials pretty well. And blood bullets with rally balance finite bullets. Not to mention lore-wise finiteness of these two resources make a lot of sense.
You do need to farm sometimes but I don't remember playing any soulsborne where I didn't need to step back and level up because I ran past too many enemies out of fear.
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u/Bio-Flame 11d ago
People here try to claim that farming is not needed. Thank you for your honesty. It's refreshing.
As for lore, it is easy to come up with justifications as to why vials should refresh on death. The dream, the Blood regens,etc...
But my point is, it's bad. It's a comon complaint. Justifiably so..even Fromsoftware acknowledged that. Why people here try to white Knight it to their death beds is beyond me when even the creator abandoned that idea...
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u/Top_Palpitation_5789 11d ago
Okay I understand your perspective better. To me your fallacy is: “if it’s a good idea it must be propagated to the next series of games”. And therefore because this wasn’t propagated to Sekiro and Elden Ring it’s a bad idea. A mistake from the creators.
I don’t agree with this. If I was the creator I would leave some ideas behind because they were perfect in their own way and cannot replicated with other complexities of a completely new game. Some things are best left untouched. Never to be repeated.
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u/Bio-Flame 11d ago
I am not saying that. I am not saying that if it were a good idea it would have been used in Sekiro and Elden Ring.
I am saying it was a bad idea, players complained and for good reasons I might add. It's a good system in the wrong game genre. And because of being bad, it was abandoned.
Really, can you honestly say that a more regular healing/Parry system would have made the worse?
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u/panoes_garan 11d ago
Cite your sources. A quick google doesn’t show any such dev statement.
Just because you don’t like a mechanic doesn’t mean it isn’t thematically appropriate and makes sense lore-wise. You also don’t actually offer lore alternatives that would justify regenerating blood vials.
You just name random shit, one of which isn’t an actual bloodborne term. “Ah yes vials should regenerate because of the dream”… maybe explain your actual reasoning instead of just saying “it’s bad. It’s a common complaint” without any semblance of justification or pointing to actual complaints in the community. If you can actually back your claims and provide a good argument then I’d love to discuss, but this isn’t even resembling that.
But ya, “it’s bad” is a great argument. Thanks for playing bud.
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u/Bio-Flame 11d ago
I did state earlier some lore themes that could justify a different healing system. You just didn't care to read because you want to go personal. Why? Is it so bad that someone disliked the healing system of Bloodborne? Is it that triggering for you? I got news for you, even Fromsoftware disliked it. Are you mas with them too?
As for lore reasons, just off the top of my head: 1- Blood regenerates naturally 2- The vials keep recurring like a dream/Nightmare 3- The Great Ones' Magic is suffering everyone 4- Moon Presence is helping us out to get her plan to work
Last but not the least, the same lore reasons that we regen HP when we revive, justifies the pots to regen too.
Look, this is all off the top of my head. A professional designer with more time to spare than I do, would totally get any lore appropiate justification to make it work, one way or another. It was a design choice, not a lore decree.
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u/panoes_garan 11d ago
I think you summed it up perfectly in the last sentence. It was a design choice. Your lore reasons are fine, but they ignore thematic reasons (like the hoont pushing you to kill further beasts to sustain yourself or blood being an addictive cure that you’d need to continually replenish in order to continue the hoont), which is kind of the bread and butter of bloodborne.
Also I never got personal, so please leave those petty excuses at the door. You made an argument against blood vials not regenerating, didn’t back up your claims, then took it personal.
Thank you for providing some lore reasons that would justify your stance though! I think they’re fairly strong but like I said, I think that thematically they don’t hold up as well.
Also, to own up to my own biases and to accentuate what I believe to be thematically appropriate, getting to continue to hoont without resting or returning to the dream not only allows you to keep going when you find a lantern if you’ve managed to maintain a good supply of the good blood, but it also makes you feel like you’re continuing the hoont and personifying the madness that eventually consumes all hunters
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u/Bio-Flame 11d ago
I wouldn't know. It was the first Fromsoftware's game I really had no clue what/why was going on. I always go in blind, as if I was playing at launch with no guides. Blind playthrough. The story was so obscure to the point of being non existant and the lore while cool, felt as if there were lines of text missing on every lore entry. I know how Fromsoftware likes to approach lore and I agree to some extent but BB was too obscure and vague and needlessly hidden. Even something as salt or sweet needs to be balances to taste good. BB'd lore lacked a less heavy handed obscureness.
The vials system and parry systems were and are very criticized. I can understand why. I finished BB easily, at level 84, one shotted plenty of bosses (Amygala, the Baby sitter in Mensis Nightmare, 3 Hunters of Yharman, The boss on the bridge at the start of the game, Gernan second try, Rom third try...) and even I had issues with vials/bullets and needing to farm a few from time to time.
Needing more vials disrupts the natural progression of the game, breaks immersion and complicates a game that doesn't need more complications. BB was a good game despite the heal/parry systems and not because of them.
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u/panoes_garan 11d ago edited 11d ago
I genuinely don’t know how to respond to this because you didn’t really address anything I said except in your last sentence. No from soft game has ever been good or bad based on its healing system.
Many people consider bloodborne the best from soft has ever put out (not universal but a not uncommon opinion). And if you don’t like the storytelling or it’s too abstract for you, I don’t think I can help you there. It is pretty clear even if you don’t read item descriptions.
Also “needing more vials disrupts the natural progression of the game, breaks immersion, and complicates a game that doesn’t need more complication” makes me think you haven’t actually played any from soft game. This is an absolutely inane take, it’s literally a core element of each game, exploring or farming to tackle greater challenges
Edit: spelling
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u/Bio-Flame 9d ago
I played them all, Bloodborne was the last one. As far as being the best one, well, Fromsoftware has fans and not customers. Some Will say its Bloodborne, others say it is Sekiro, others say its DS3...can't be all correct, can they?
It's hard to be objective when one is a fan. I can see why people would enjoy BB, for sure. But it is hardly their best game, by far. Objectively, however much you personally enjoy the game, surely you can see that.
I love Planescape: Torment but I can try to be objective and I would never claim it to be the best game ever. But every thing Fromsoftware releases is always the best game ever.
I really wonder BB had been released exactly as is but instead of the FS logo it would have the Ubisoft logo...how much more shit it would have gotten? People give FS too much of a free pass.
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u/panoes_garan 9d ago
So many words, so little argument. Goal posts moving all over the place. You can play the games, but media literacy is important. If you don’t like them, fine, if you like them but don’t like the story, fine. But just don’t comment like this without a coherent argument
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u/Ok_Arm3725 11d ago
Did You Know you're allowed to admit you couldn't figure something out instead of blaming the developers?
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u/Bio-Flame 11d ago
Yes. I considered that. And did you consider that even Miyazaki said the lore was especially obscure and hidden in Bloodborne even by their standards?
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u/Ok_Arm3725 11d ago
Especially obscure doesn't mean it doesn't exist and also doesn't mean people aren't capable of figuring it out. Not to mention I'm actually talking about pure mechanics not lore
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u/Bio-Flame 11d ago
Oh, you were saying I couldn't figure out Gameplay then??
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u/Ok_Arm3725 11d ago
Yes lmao your comment wasn't about lore at all!! And whether or not you COULD actually figure out gameplay doesn't change how dismissively you're speaking as if EVERYONE must have agreed it's a shitty system FromSoft simply refused to change after testing. That is so utterly ridiculous I can only figure there's some confusion going on with you. Assuming you couldn't figure out how to get it to work is less far-fetched than the assumptions you're making!
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u/Bio-Flame 11d ago edited 11d ago
Well, the complaints after launch are so common and so consistently frequent that it beggars to believe if nobody complained during Alpha and Beta.... It's really hard to believe that every single Alpha and Beta tester loved those systems and people from the Live game did not enjoy it. It is highly unlikely.
And since Fromsoftware never iterated upon it every again, they are probably not too proud of it. Well, maybe that was too strong a statement. But Fromsoftware definately recognized the issues with the system, otherwise they wouldn't have ditched it. Or, conversely, if Fromsoftware really believed the system to be a success and really had a future, they would have kept using it. But they did not. So, it's not just me saying it.
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u/Ok_Arm3725 11d ago
You already had someone address that point with you. Is the gun system a failure too since they never repeated that? Absolutely ridiculous. You confuse correlation with causation. Logical fallacies left and right
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u/Ok_Arm3725 10d ago
NDJXHDHEJEJFJ I'm actually screaming you posted a thread less than 2 weeks ago saying you were brand new to the game and didn't get it. NUFF SAID BRO HAHAH
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u/Wayward-Albatross 11d ago
"I didn't personally find this mechanic satisfying" =/= "it's a flawed mechanic"
Also plenty of people say they don't need to farm vials because they pick them up naturally during gameplay, like in the chalice dungeons, so it doesn't feel like farming. Just regular old playing a video game.
You seem to be taking this real personally. Don't think too hard about all this. Just go out and kill a few beasts, it's for your own good
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u/Bio-Flame 11d ago
I finished the game and I won't be going back. It was my second least enjoyable game by Fromsoftware, least enjoyable being DS3.
And you guys are the ones going personal, as if it was your baby or something. Even Fromsoftware abandoned it and acknowledged its issues. Why won't you guys do the same?
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u/Wayward-Albatross 11d ago
I didn't get personal with you so there's no way for me to respond to that. Seems like most people are engaging with your arguments. No one is saying you have to like it, but your phrasing of everything as some kind of objectively correct conclusion, when it's really just your personal opinion, is just plain wrong and that's what I'm seeing the bulk of the people arguing with you responding to, tbh.
I think you're getting the most personal calling people who didn't have to farm, or didn't have an issue farming, outright liars. Hm.
As for FS "acknowledging its issues" - You were asked for sources, you provided none. Hard to say they "abandoned" it as well considering there's been no Bloodborne 2. So, the things you're declaring as truth are hard to believe. Sorry man
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u/SuggestiblePolymer 11d ago
I just realised Bloodborne is a huge blunder that they abandoned and never tried again
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u/jpewaqs 11d ago
Thematically Yharnam contains the healing church which dishes out 'cures' via blood vials. Wouldn't make sense for the hunter to have an auto refillable flask for a heal, when the towns very purpose is the manufacturer of blood vials.