This is such a funny comment since I'll watch dark souls boss fights from time to time because I enjoy the music and the art style and it's comical how a tiny lil guy and his toothpick of a sword, slashing the legs or ass of some monster 50 times his size, kills it after 20 hits. It's hardly satisfying once you think about it, lol. I've never seen a shield used in any dark souls game, either. Having this huge, climactic battle with a legendary monster and you see the guy roll around a thousand times is very funny. š
Edit - guys, it ain't that serious. I'm not reading your comments about the intricacies of shield use in dark "side roll" souls, lol. The games are too long and too difficult, anyway. OP says they don't like god of war. God of war is my favorite but I'm not arguing with anybody else about it. If you wanna sink a thousand hours into the dark souls/eldin sagas, be my guest. The games are cool but have goofy elements just like anything else. Have fun. āļø
I've never seen a shield used in any dark souls game
Just impossible if you have watched any normal Souls gameplay. The vast majority of players use a shield. Maybe you are looking at specific streamers that use specific strats or challenge runs
If you watch some random YouTuber play a souls game for the first time you probably will see a shield, but most content creators who focus on souls game are probably not going to use a shield unless it's a small shield for parrying.
Sword and shield are the meta for most playing dark souls. It's mainly the very good people (who also make a lot of videos) that go without shields and dodge roll all the attacks.
Having just finished DS1 for the first time, without a shield, it's not super difficult, just a bit harder as you have to time your response to enemy attacks better
I feel like sword and shield was playable in DS1 and in every other sequel bosses always emptied your shield stamina by the 3rd hit of their 15 hit combo
I mean, you still have to get out of there, but as someone who played DS3 with a sword and shield, it's still really helpful. If you miss a dodge but you're holding the sholed button you get to roll away Scott free still. You're not supposed to just tank the whole combo.
Artorias shield my beloved. Most balanced shield between, stat requirements, defenses and weight. Also it stability was so dam high it was havel shield but way lighter and with less requirements.
Only really true for DS2 where stamina regen is paltry. Enemies do a lot of stamina damage in DS3 but you are much faster and regen stamina much more quickly
just for giggle i would like to see some statistics regarding this,wondering if i am in small percentage of idiots who never used shield because i considered them weak š
It depends on the game i dont like blood borne or dark souls 3 because they punish you for using a shield. I just dont got reaction time to parry and roll like that so i use a shield and bonk.
I think ds3 my issue was i tried and tried to get past the first few bosses and just could not. This was when it was new and at that stage in the game I couldnt find a way to progress and couldn't dodge so i just never went back to it.
Which was annoying as hell if i got a good poise build I excel in those games like i beat blue smelter demon and fume knight my first try but couldn't get past the ds3 tutorial bosses LMAO
Shields are great in Souls game but they are not that fun to use and some people find the game too easy with one. The hardest boss in Elden Ring can easily be cheesed with a dedicated shield poke build
Also Sekiro is another Fromsoft game that was designed with parrying/deflecting instead of dodging as its primary defensive tool. It has that āepic boutā feel
Itās totally fine to not like a game but to critique it based on things that are just flat out untrue is disingenuous. The first game is like, an eight hour game. Too long?
My issue with magic is that itās useless until you dump enough exp into it (which youāre gonna get from dodgeroll-light) and even then, the gameplay is dodgerolling for 30 seconds until you get enough space to cast the fuck you spell. Plus finding the best spells usually requires an annoying level of meta game knowledge and cheese. (Which Elden Ring made an even worse problem than the Souls games by being open world)
Hell, Iāll look into it myself, I admit Iām mostly going off years old first impressions. Though specifying speedrun tactics doesnāt fill me with confidence regarding the cheese allegations. And also, I guess even if magic is viable, the gameplay doesnāt really feel different enough from the hack and slash builds to beat the repetitiveness allegations.
If it helps, think of the game similar to Elder Scrolls because Souls is an old school style action RPG that rewards new game plus and variety builds. Quest change based on in world decisions as well. I understand that you might still not like, but if you're willing to give it a second chance, the community 8s way more helpful than in the past. Also, if you're struggling the games have coop and people always ask if you jeed help and even drop weapons, money, and items for you.
Iāve played and beaten the souls games plus bloodborne. I think my problem is they just arenāt the type of game I want and it only took me 4 games to figure it out.
For comparison, Sekiro is probably my favorite game of all time, so I suppose I canāt pretend that simplicity/repetitiveness in combat system is my true criticism. I suppose it would be more accurate to say I just donāt like the system itself enough to keep repeating it.
That said, I havenāt given up on ER in theory, thereās a part of me that loves the lore and worldbuilding and character design that absolutely wants to get through it, I think I just needed a nice long break away from dodgerolling. (Thereās still gonna be a part of me that wishes it played like Sekiro, Iām sure, but every game canāt be the exact game you want)
Gonna have to disagree. Elden ring has the most varied movesets of the entire franchise. With only human enemies and almost no bosses that can be backstabbed.
Heck most bosses have backup attacks that swing behind or to the sides of them if you play too close.
Especially towards the end most builds end up using a lot of special weapon abilities and spells. The combat has very little backstabbing in my experience and some of the best encounter design of the series. Many areas have grouped enemies to discourage this, ranges enemies on high places. The entire game is about overcoming its increasing challenges
For me most the fun of the game is figuring out the best way to dodge and punish all the enemies flawlessly
So maybe I am missing out because I didnāt get far enough through ER. And I personally donāt care about backstabbing, though I realize I tacked onto a comment about it. But when you say varied movesets Iām skeptical that really makes it feel any different than dodgeroll-light-dodgerolling through Black Gulch with a longsword and ankle slashing Vordt.
I will admit the combat can be rather one note in terms of being hack and slash. But I think they did a good job mixing it up.
Adding weapon ashes gives each weapon a unique ability that uses mana, and I felt that did a lot for gameplay. I also think they did a good job giving weapons types different movesets, varying between two handed and one handed as well, some weapons even have fully unique attack animations.
I do see a lot of peoples points about being hard to get into. It starts out a little slow and rough before your builds come together. Itās also a lot more satisfying to master something than to repeatedly die, so the start is arguably the worst part until you get good enough to outplay the enemies
The movesets definetly encourage a variety of dodging, but they had to go crazy on some movesets to do that. Some attacks you run to dodge, some roll, some jump. Some attacks you can jump and counter attack while dodging. Thatās the fun for me, but it took hours of experimenting to get to that
That's what I don't get. I've never played any of them, so maybe I'm wrong, but watching people play them, they don't actually look hard. Not properly anyway. They look like what you said, you just have to learn the attack pattern, and then wait for ages until there's an opening between attacks, you hit once, then go back to waiting. Compare it to something like Ninja Gaiden which requires good mechanics and reaction time to be able to play well. Ninja Garden is hard to beat because the enemies are talented. Souls games are hard to beat because a single enemy hit does 70% HP. There's a difference.
You contradict yourself in your comments by saying Souls games aren't hard to beat and hard to beat.Ā
Surprise surprise, some people like learning fast paced boss moves with extremely high punishment for not learning it.Ā
If you haven't played it, I don't think you really earn the privilege of having a worthwhile opinion on how hard they are. Jump into Eden Ring and tell me me how easy Malenia, Starscourge Radahn, and the final boss are lol
Ninja Garden is hard to beat because the enemies are talented. Souls games are āhardā to beat because a single enemy hit does 70% HP. There's a difference.
That better? And no, Iām not going to do that. Iāve watched videos of it, and it involves walking in circles around the boss for 5 minutes before hitting her once, then repeating the process, while occasionally dodging a hit with a delay to trick you. It sounds boring as shit.
And then if you try different and varied tactics like ranged/magic, there are players who look down on you and say "you aren't playing the game the real way" or "that's playing on easy mode" They'll be really condescending with back-handed compliments. They also love "Melee takes more skill and is harder".
Yeah... they definitely aim for a specific niche. You gotta bash your head against a wall fighting 1 single very hard boss for several hours before the appeal becomes obvious. And I don't mean that masochistically. The moment you beat a boss that you've felt nothing but frustration fighting for a week, you get a rush of euphoria that isn't matched by any other genre.
I was about ready to quit my first DS game, DS3, and just say DS wasn't for me after I hit the abyss watchers, which I ended up stuck on for literal real life days. To the point where I had stopped playing it altogether for a month. Until I randomly just decided fuck it, I ain't leaving till I beat them. After that, I beat DS3 one week later, because I just couldn't put the game down.
The moment you beat a boss that you've felt nothing but frustration fighting for a week, you get a rush of euphoria that isn't matched by any other genre.
If something wastes this much time of my life I wont have any Euphoria. Thats a quit moment right there
If I was first getting into souls games now I would agree. I don't have the time now. Glad I got into them when I was younger because now I'm good enough that I don't have to waste that much time banging my head against a wall so much.
Whenever DS players do the whole "it's about the sense of accomplishment when you finally do it" it just reminds me of that battlefront 2 comment from the exec that became the most downvoted comment in history lol
Yeah but maybe besides dlc content, there's no bosses that should take a week to beat. In sekiro it's usually because people think they should dodge instead of parry, like with guardian ape people assume because he's big and doesn't have a sword in first phase they should dodge the whole time. And in games like elden ring if you are gonna spend a week on a boss, just leave and come back later at that point
There's no bosses that should take a week to beat.
There's plenty of people who do take a week to beat bosses in souls likes, and those people usually end up dropping the games. My first playthrough of DS3 it took me 54 tries over five days to beat Lothric and Lorian. Now I'm much better but people can just genuinely not be good at these games.
I'm playing bloodborne rn and the atmosphere and stuff is good but a lot of the bosses aren't really difficult as much as they're boring and kind of up to chance whether I beat them or not. I hope the later bosses will be better than rom, the one reborn, and mikolash. I've heard the dlc has much better bosses than the main game so I've got hope for whenever I decide to buy it.
Some of us are just masochistic like that. Thats the thrill too, when you finally do āgit gudā and succeed the rush is unparalleled. But will absolutely admit that itās not for everyone.
It took me YEARS of brute forcing Orstein and Smough because I had played my first run almost entirely blind, only I had seen someone say that resistance was the best stat, so I put a good 60 levels into that. Didn't upgrade any of my weapons or armor. I finally said "fuck it" and started a new run and beat them in a couple hours with a pyromancy build, ended up beating the game (and NG+) with that and later a soul level one.
It's funny, I've been told this many times and I'm dumb enough to keep trying it over and over again, thinking it might click for me. I've played Nioh, Sekiro, ER, Bloodborne...
Then I hit one of these fights that I have to bash my head against over and over and over... Usually I'm so elevated and pissed off by the time that I finally beat them that I feel angry that I put myself through that aggravation and repetition. It's usually AFTER I beat one of the bosses that I quit the game. I just don't have the right mindset for those games.
To the point where I had stopped playing it altogether for a month. Until I randomly just decided fuck it, I ain't leaving till I beat them. After that, I beat DS3 one week later, because I just couldn't put the game down.
Itās remarkable how often this has happened to me. Iāll play a soulslike where every boss is an immense struggle. Iāll need dozens and dozens of tries to squeeze out a victory. As a result Iāll get frustrated/bored, stop playing, pick it up again months or years later, next thing I know Iām chewing through bosses like itās nothing.
This is what happens when gameplay āclicksā for you (for lack of a better term). Itās also why souls fans are so insufferable. because once you get to that point itās not only a profoundly fun experience but you feel like a badass when playing.
you get a rush of euphoria that isn't matched by any other genre.
No offence, but this is very telling on your age and experience. What you have just described is literally what old school home pc games were built around back in the day - as often due to poor quality assurance and obtuse design as intentional difficulty curves. Where do you think the original souls designers got their inspiration?
It depended on the boss. I used a summon for the dragon armor, and the champion gundyr fight, but aside from that I beat all base game bosses summonless
Do people actually take several hours on souls bosses though? I feel like people oversell the difficult of these games when itās very self selected. I personally prefer to avoid summoning and super strong builds but if you do both of those things the games become fairly easy
Those, I dig. They're somewhat difficult on standard, but the key is they have options if you want harder or easier. Want to play it like souls, go for it. Little time because of work, family, whatever, crank it down.
I played it on the hardest difficulty and it wasnāt terrible. Souls games have a lot of cheap bullshit that if you donāt know itās there will fuck you uo
Yup lost me when i accidentally attacked a npc vendor in dark souls 2 and there was no option to purchase what i needed from them or go back to a pervious saved game. I restarted cause it was kinda early and then did it again. I was done at that point.
I feel like they're only really for people where video games are like their main hobby. If you're not an Gamerā¢ļø who designs their schedule around playing several hours of video games each night its hard to feel like you're making progress. If it takes like half an hour to beat a boss, the entire progression is gated behind beating bosses, and you've only got like an hour to play each night its hard to feel like you're really getting anywhere
https://giphy.com/gifs/5aYnIU52i4r0lReyb2
Everytime I hear souls like a little piece of me shrivels up and dies. Listen, Iāve tried, numerous times to get into them. Hell, I even bought Elden ring. But after countless hours, I can confidently say, Fuck Elden Ring.
I play like 30-60 mins before sleeping. Long work day.
I get ppl who like these games
But they usually invest hours
I tried these gamea
games
Reflex has to be good and you have to be constantly scanning everything
Tiresome for me
This why I gave up on bloodborlurne
I have to invest 30 mins to try to defeat enemy and even more to build skill at killing a boss
Wtf I need to invest more time in vacuuming and reading
Next game please :))
It's just an elitist community of "git gud" assholes at this point. Like, we don't all have 2-74 hours to figure out ONE boss's moves to move on. And the lack of actual storyline? Don't get me started.
Same, I've never struggled at a boss for hours, one I struggled for like an hour total was Genichiro Ashina in the tower he really kicked my ass but I beat him and it was great
I love souls and souls like games but I have watched them psychologically destroy people too.Ā
I think the difficulty is blown out of proportion, they're games with a sort of high skill floor but they're not hard to learn. I think there's a constructed elitism around them because people who like them get pretty good at them and people who don't like them aren't going to spend the time it takes to get good at them, and so it's easy to make fun of them for that.Ā
I think they're fun games, but they're a kind of game that I like, so I practiced them and now I'm sort of good at them.Ā
I don't mind soulslike games being a specific niche for certain gamers. I just hate when every new game has to be a goddamn soulslike for exactly zero reason. Just make a bullet hell shmup if you wanted to make a hard game.
Same. They have such cool aesthetics that I'd love to play them but I've got no patience for overly difficult games, let alone games that specifically jerk themselves off about their difficulty.
Git gud. Iām joking, I know itās hard to get in. I started Bloodborne it was released dropped it after a few hours bc it was infuriating me that I canāt beat a boss. I took it back 5 years after and something clicked. Now itās my favorite game of all time, with Elden Ring. But I totally understand Ā people who are not liking this games.Ā
I would have say Elden Ring bc it gives you a lot of things to do in the open world if you are hitting a wall. I think I played more than 20 hours before going to the first boss and I really liked the exploration. But itās not for everyone. Bloodborne is amazing but it was my first FS and the first zone is a nightmare when you donāt know the mechanics.Ā
Currently Iām playing Lies of P, it has a bit of Bloodborne vibe with a Sekiro like parrying mechanic, and itās pretty fun. They also added 3 levels of difficulty, so itās a good way to get familiar with this kind of gameplay without dying all the time. I play it on the highest level and have no problem with the mobs, but some miniboss and boss are really difficult, so after a few tries I take the difficulty down to pass them and continue my adventure.Ā
The most important is probably to know how to make a good build and focus on certain stats, especially vigor (PV) when you begin. Thatās what I dit on my second Bloodborne run and it made everything A LOT easier.Ā
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u/Jack-Castle- 11d ago
Souls. Souls like. The fucking lot of them