[Megathread] Dark Souls 3

[Radio]

Consider that there is a weapon that has phys, fire, magic to it too C:! but yeah, thank god the game is full of titanite shards and chunks, havent found many slabs yet tho

There are 8 unique slabs per playthrough, and they are also a rare drop from a particular endgame mob. This game is nothing like Bloodborne in that respect.

[antelope591]

In 11hours and 18minutes of play time, I don't think I've been invaded once. Although there was a purple phantom and it acted amazingly similar to a player (By that I mean he fucking chugged like 5 estus)

I dunno what you guys are doing but you can only get invaded if you're embered (equivalent of humanity from past games)....I walk around embered most of the time and get invaded quite often. Also if you're blue sentinel covenant you literally get chain summoned into other worlds, had to switch covenants to get a break. Wolves of Farrah or w/e gets you summoned quite a bit too.

[dope_danny]

So i 'think' im on the home stretch. I took down The giant lord and got through the boreal valley up to Aldritch and man, thats some Ludwig level 'git gud' difficulty spike. At that point i decided to backtrack and go on a trek to find all the illusory walls, so far found none in walls of lothric or the cathedral of the deep but from the rope bridge in the catacombs theres a drop to two secret bosses, a few story tidbits and a metric asstone of secret doors within secret doors that kept me busy for hours. Well worth the trek.

So far though i have a glaring criticism: What is the story?

Each souls game builds its world through items, level design, environmental storytelling, character dialogue and basic mis-en-scene.

In Demons we learn one day the king went away and came back with these fat officials, soon after a deep fog began to spread across the land and demons followed in its wake and the people began to lose their minds and go mad. Your goal is defeat the evil demons and cause the ancient god that causes the fog to return to slumber.

In Dark Souls we learn the history of the world and that the fire of life and civilisation is burning out, Gwyn left his allies to keep things in check as he kindled the fire and things went from bad to worse and as the world dies off you are the last hope to clear the way to Gwyn and replace him.

In Dark Souls 2 Vendrick stole a throne from the giants that was connected to the flame, one of manus' offshoots married him lusting after the power of the throne of want and vendrick hid himself away to go hollow and keep her from the throne. You take Nashandra down and replace vendrick atop the throne to once again link the fire.

In Bloodborne a school is founded to study an ancient labryinth discovered under the city and the remains of ancient old elder things within, numerous schisms in the school lead to multiple governing bodies with different ideas on what to do with the healing blood found within, unaware that it is cursed to devolve men into monsters and you arrive as the plans of all these groups reach their endgames against each other and risk bringing these great old ones to earth and turning reality into literal nightmares made real. You kill off all the leaders, deal with the sources of the blood distribution to contain the outbreak and even deal with the source of the nightmare itself saving reality and ending the dream.

All can be a little obtuse but you still have a plot and a general idea why you are doing something.

But in DS3 i cant say theres been any real story beyond the 'go get all the lords of cinder' opening cinematic. I know they said this is the final cycle in press releases, but why? to what end? and aside from the odd comment from crestbro 4.0 just what direction is the player character supposed to have in the story beyond 'stumbling upon some more wierd shit when exploring aimlessley?'

It feels thus far -and maybe it changes in the final sections- that far too much of the 'story' of this game is just visiting things after the fact and getting hints to DS1. Which was one of the cardinal sins of DS2's worldbuilding.

Is it just me? i mean its fun to run into huge references and things that make you go 'oh no way BLANK is here!' as you go, but i know nothing about the current world bar "some weird knights come out the boreal valley sometimes and go feral". It just feels, pun not intended, kind of hollow so far.

[Jtbrig7390]

I dunno what you guys are doing but you can only get invaded if you're embered (equivalent of humanity from past games)....I walk around embered most of the time and get invaded quite often. Also if you're blue sentinel covenant you literally get chain summoned into other worlds, had to switch covenants to get a break. Wolves of Farrah or w/e gets you summoned quite a bit too.

I rarely play embered because I don't want to deal with the pvp.

[Djriff]

There are 8 unique slabs per playthrough, and they are also a rare drop from a particular endgame mob. This game is nothing like Bloodborne in that respect.

Thank God. Only 1 blood rock without the DLC was absolutely silly. Especially considering NG+ pretty much requires a +10 weapon unless you want to be hitting like a wet tissue paper.

[Poppincaps]

God damn Dragonslayer Armour was such a cool boss. Honestly probably my favorite other than Abyss Watchers. Challenging and punishing but completely fair. Also the other element of the fight is something you need to be aware of but isn't overpowering. Perfectly balanced in my opinion.

[Remilia]

Don't fire weapons scale with int/faith? I know pyro magic does.

Chaos weapon do, not fire.

- - - Updated - - -

Not sure why the game only let's you respec 5 times, (which is somewhat stupid) but i found my dual melee build a bit lacking in meaningful damage. Regardless, i started over with a knight and I'm now gonna focus on a Sorc /Pyro build with the weapon mentioned above. Did you guys know you can fight Dancer early on if you didn't kill vordt yet? Hello 50k souls right off the bat for a nice leap in stats. They should probably fix that glitch though, already killed her on the first character so it's not like I've missed out on an good fight, but for the people who haven't fought her yet, i suggest you wait till midgame.

It's not a bug. To get the key item to proceed, you either A. Fulfill her request or B. Kill her. Since B is possible you can spawn Boreal Dancer. This is also the case with Dark Souls 1 where you can go to 4 (1, 2, or 3) kings right at the start by killing the gatekeeper with the key. Is it advised to kill them that early in the game and do the boss, no, but you can.

[Aux]

Does anyone know if spells stack like they did in the older games? Since we have a mana bar now if they do stack is it just a flap dmg/heal buff?

[Poppincaps]

Does anyone know if spells stack like they did in the older games? Since we have a mana bar now if they do stack is it just a flap dmg/heal buff?

They don't stack. You only ever need one of each spell.

[Ifeanychukwu]

As someone that's never played a Dark Souls game but loves RPGs, should I play Dark Souls?

[Poppincaps]

As someone that's never played a Dark Souls game but loves RPGs, should I play Dark Souls?

It's likely different from any RPG you've ever played. Whether that is a good or bad thing is up to you.

[esoterickk]

As someone that's never played a Dark Souls game but loves RPGs, should I play Dark Souls?

It's an amazing game if you don't mind dying and enjoy difficult bosses that require working on them for a while.

[barackopala]

As someone that's never played a Dark Souls game but loves RPGs, should I play Dark Souls?

I'd define it with the same approach i do when ppl ask about monster hunter being an RPG... it has RPG elements and equipment and stats... but the action has a bigger emphasis, approach with caution and dont play recklessly.

[Poppincaps]

Oh my fucking god... why have I not been using the guard break? I didn't realize you could do a riposte type thing after doing it. It makes these Cathedral Knights so much easier.

Has this been in every game?

[barackopala]

has been since DS2, but it was "better" in ds2 in terms that it would break the guard instantly, in ds3 the kick will drain stamina and if you have enough you can be kicked twice before the break occurs. Once broken a riposte can go in, in ds1 it just meant your character left his guard open for the opponent to attack but no criticals

[Djriff]

dont play recklessly.

Playing recklessly is what makes it super fun though! Decided the pyro mage was a bit to easy, so going through a playthrough with my +3 broken short sword. This thing's actually pretty legit.

[Jinxz]

Playing recklessly is what makes it super fun though! Decided the pyro mage was a bit to easy, so going through a playthrough with my +3 broken short sword. This thing's actually pretty legit.

after i mastered the art of dodge roll, the game has became too ez.

[Djriff]

I think they increased the number of frames of invincibility on the PS4. I've been able to get away with some really really bad rolls.

[RobertoCarlos]

nothing wrong with rollin.

[Deleted]

I cant play this game :/ i liek the gameplay and i dont mind dying all the time. But i really hate loosing previous progression from dying. Just not my kind of game