[Megathread] Dark Souls 3

[Remilia]

What's "adjust the performance of X category" mean?

Also just fought crystal sage, really odd fight. First boss / big monster fight where the goal seemed to just run at it slashing without regard for ones safety.

Attack it at it's current location, when it runs off, jog to the opposite side, no running, it'll spawn there, repeat. It sort of goes counter clockwise spawning if a variation occurs.
>.>

[Kantalope]

Good timing on helping covenants. I just got my plat trophy. ~_~

[PizzaSHARK]

At least you didn't let Siegward die :P
And yes, it's a bit of req, not a huge one though.

Do you actually have to do Leonhard's quest to join? Why wouldn't you do his quest?

[Gref]

Too bad people, I have read an article today that Hidetaka Miyazaki puts the souls series on hold. Finally. And he states that he wants to go back to making mechas. Fromsoftware has a 20 year history of Armored Core games. Thanks to your game we mecha fans didn't get Armored core VI. I hated you. All of you. (Dark Souls is another awesome game however). No more dark souls more mechs.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebar.../#4edff3751845

Good times. Best news I have had since Armored Core 5

[Djriff]

Do you actually have to do Leonhard's quest to join? Why wouldn't you do his quest?

No, i did it though, so not certain

[PizzaSHARK]

Carthus Bloodring and Hornet Ring really just need to be deleted from the game. Really shows how stupid FromSoft is that they thought either of those rings wouldn't be gamebreaking.

[Poppincaps]

Carthus Bloodring is hardly the problem. The problem is how little stamina rolling costs. You can just spam rolls all day. From a design standpoint it is interesting. Doubling down on rolling and taking more damage if you fuck it up. It works for PVE. Not so much for PVP.

The Hornet Ring is pretty stupid though.

[Pull My Finger]

When you see people on forums complain, nitpick and bitch about something as sublime as Dark Souls 3, then you need no more proof that folks out there are just completely oversaturated, jaded, numb, fully detached from the big picture and chronically irritated ... and have that behavior carved deep into their brains to the point where it works like a gag reflex.

[everydaygamer]

When you see people on forums complain, nitpick and bitch about something as sublime as Dark Souls 3, then you need no more proof that folks out there are just completely oversaturated, jaded, numb, fully detached from the big picture and chronically irritated ... and have that behavior carved deep into their brains to the point where it works like a gag reflex.

The more you love a game the more the flaws stand out and DkS 3 Has alot of flaws.

[Pull My Finger]

The more you love a game the more the flaws stand out and DkS 3 Has alot of flaws.

Yeah, your mom has a lot of flaws, do you walk around talking about it all day? That's exactly what I mean, get a grip people, the game is a revelation in a sea of mediocrity, and if the primary reflex is still to nitpick and carp around, it just shows that the person is out of touch. People like that are far detached from the moment. Things are passing them by because they're too busy being their inhibited, grumpy self.

[Djriff]

I wouldn't go that far. The souls series is definitely a "revelation in a sea of mediocrity", but DS3 has a ton of flaws.

Literally best build to play is Sword and Board.
Int/Faith pures are gimped due to stupid scaling to prevent hybrids.
Bows saw an improvement, but are slow and have drawbacks that aren't tied to the bow itself.

[PizzaSHARK]

Yeah, your mom has a lot of flaws, do you walk around talking about it all day? That's exactly what I mean, get a grip people, the game is a revelation in a sea of mediocrity, and if the primary reflex is still to nitpick and carp around, it just shows that the person is out of touch. People like that are far detached from the moment. Things are passing them by because they're too busy being their inhibited, grumpy self.

Are you down wanking to your own posts yet, or should we give you another 3 minutes?

There are a ridiculous amount of flaws with DS3, and all other Soulsborne games have plenty of flaws, too. I wouldn't exactly describe them as revelations, and if they stand out of the "sea of mediocrity", it's only by a few feet.

DS3 is, quite simply, the worst-designed game FromSoft has produced. It lacks the clarity of purpose that all of the other entries had, which isn't surprising because they're beating themselves off trying to make it the "perfect" send-off to the entire series since they're dumping the IP. DS1 was the original. DS2 is in many cases accused of being a clone of DS1... and they're probably at least half-right. DS3 is basically trying to be DS1 meets BB without realizing why that's an exceptionally stupid idea, and while discarding many of the extremely good design choices that were made in DS2.

At this point I honestly think I'm playing DS3 out of inertia than any actual enjoyment from it. It's an incredibly mediocre offering from FromSoft, and has the least depth and inventiveness of any entry in the series. Mage builds are flat-out not possible until very late in the game and have almost zero flexibility in itemization - you WILL use both +damage rings, you WILL use Magic Clutch Ring, you WILL use Scholar's Candlestick, you WILL use Dusk's hat because sorceries are completely balanced around the use of these items, and you're just gimping yourself without them (the alternative would be sorcery is balanced without them and they are then extremely overpowered.) It's extremely stupid, sloppy design. The same thing applies to Pyromancy (you WILL use both +pyromancy rings and Flame Clutch ring.) Offensive Miracles are pretty much entirely worthless before close to 60 Faith, and since healing/buff miracles basically don't scale with Faith...

Ranged weapons are so pathetically useless it's astounding. They can't be infused, they can't be buffed, and enemies can literally avoid their attacks by WALKING sideways. You can MISS a hollow that's completely unaware of your presence because it's WALKING FORWARD and the lock-on aim fails to compensate for travel time.

Combat in general has never been more "stun them to death before they stun you to death" than in DS3. It's always been an element in Dark Souls, but since even the most basic of hollows has a flailing combo attack with superb tracking and every single hit stuns because poise does nothing, you MUST rely on stunlocking enemies to death. So many elite mooks die to the tried and true strategy of "poke them until out of stamina, retreat, poke them until out of stamina, repeat until dead." Even fucking HAVEL dies to this! Even the ABYSS WATCHERS die to that, and they're a fucking Lord of Cinder boss!

Don't get me started on how fucking ridiculous the PvP in DS3 is. Shit like this is the rule, not the exception. Getting one-shot by a riposte at higher levels when Hornet Ring is available is the rule, not an exception. Timing isn't important because partial parries exist to prevent you from being punished too harshly for failing a parry, and parries have almost no startup frames and extremely generous active frames, especially on bucklers.

Maybe some of this can be fixed. The game being a complete fucking mess with the absolute worst combat of any game in the series, with severe input delay (easily upwards of 0.5 sec!), with the obvious rushed quality of so many of the game's mechanics and elements, can't be fixed.

So stop blowing Miyazaki and take a step back and realize that Dark Souls 3 is a 7/10 product, not some kind of revelation that's going to redefine the gaming industry. Dark Souls 1 is arguably the most "pure" of the series and while it was significant, its impact on the industry is still orders of magnitude less than fucking Minecraft's. So your precious Miyazaki-sama rates less than a fat Swede with a hat that basically copied and marginally expanded on some other guy's work.

[Jtbrig7390]

So stop blowing Miyazaki and take a step back and realize that Dark Souls 3 is a 7/10 product, not some kind of revelation that's going to redefine the gaming industry. Dark Souls 1 is arguably the most "pure" of the series and while it was significant, its impact on the industry is still orders of magnitude less than fucking Minecraft's. So your precious Miyazaki-sama rates less than a fat Swede with a hat that basically copied and marginally expanded on some other guy's work.

Its almost like people have different opinions then you.

To me Bloodborne and DS3 is the best of the souls/born games. But that is just my opinion and both recieved a 10/10 IMO. For me 10/10 doesn't mean perfect (No respectable reviewer would ever say it did ether).

Edit: To add I don't count Demon's Souls since I never beat it.

[Pull My Finger]

*queef*

Yeah, like I said. You're one of those guys. The way you go off, your whole outlook and everything about you and your "opinion" is a predictably compulsive act. Quite sad how you can't get over yourself and take a step away from your affliction, but then again, it's your problem. Have, uh, fun not having fun, and all.

[Deleted]

Hornet Ring really just need to be deleted from the game.

Hey now, that ring is a classic.

[Deleted]

Its almost like people have different opinions then you.

To me Bloodborne and DS3 is the best of the souls/born games. But that is just my opinion and both recieved a 10/10 IMO. For me 10/10 doesn't mean perfect (No respectable reviewer would ever say it did ether).

Edit: To add I don't count Demon's Souls since I never beat it.

I agree with you on Bloodborne being the best in the series. And also grades do not exist to show something is perfect, they exist to set the media apart from other media. Bloodborne is simply the best in its genre, so it deserves that 10/10. Perfection has nothing to do with it.

[Baconeggcheese]

When you see people on forums complain, nitpick and bitch about something as sublime as Dark Souls 3, then you need no more proof that folks out there are just completely oversaturated, jaded, numb, fully detached from the big picture and chronically irritated ... and have that behavior carved deep into their brains to the point where it works like a gag reflex.

I imagine a lot of the criticisms today come from people being more informed about things. I know I didn't have nearly the information handy when I was younger as I do today, and I played most games pretty much blind. I maybe the occasional gamefaqs walkthrough to get me through a section I couldn't figure out or even a physical strategy guide when I was really young and it wasn't common to have a household computer. Today I am more informed and I learn about every nook and cranny of games, which causes fairly basic design flaws to stick out like a sore thumb. I imagine that's true of most people who are the type to bother posting on fan sites like this, with information so readily available it becomes very easy to be that person.

The other half of it is there's not much discussion to be had from talking the game up. You don't grow as a person from just talking about how great everything is and agreeing with each other. People had their initial "spoiler was awesome!" moments early on, and now they're talking about things that are preventing them or hampering their enjoyment of the game.

I've been thoroughly enjoying the game myself as its my first dark souls, but there's definitely been a handful of head scratching design decisions where I simply can't figure out why the designers thought that this or that was a good idea.

[Pull My Finger]

I imagine a lot of the criticisms today come from people being more informed about things. I know I didn't have nearly the information handy when I was younger as I do today, and I played most games pretty much blind. I maybe the occasional gamefaqs walkthrough to get me through a section I couldn't figure out or even a physical strategy guide when I was really young and it wasn't common to have a household computer. Today I am more informed and I learn about every nook and cranny of games, which causes fairly basic design flaws to stick out like a sore thumb. I imagine that's true of most people who are the type to bother posting on fan sites like this, with information so readily available it becomes very easy to be that person.

You're certainly right that a lot of it comes from being informed. I think that in fact it's exactly this "informedness" that isn't really doing people any favors. I'm really not a big fan of the fact that it's so common in gaming communities - it's so un-fun and stiff. Everyone's so conditioned by media, reviews and critics and all that shit, consuming way too much of it and listening to it too much. You can tell by the terminology that people use, the way the look at things, the whole way of going on about being "knowledgeable" about the subject. It's all constant judging, evaluation, dissection, reviewing, instead of experiencing. Saying shit that critics say and all that. It's contrived and trains people to adopt a nitpicky, looking-for-flaws, being "critical" for the sake of it kind of mindset.

You won't hear a "real" person ever talk about a bullshit concept like "innovation", which really, is something that's being pushed onto people by academia, critics, researchers and other airheads. People that get paid to listen to themselves talk, instead of being in the moment. Too much of it sucks, because it puts people into this objectifying, analytical, sober headspace, and one thing that's completely out of the window the same moment you're in that space is the sense of wonder, fascination, discovery, and innocent and genuine enjoyment.

You can't be animated when you're having a stick up your bum. People might not always notice it, but it creeps up on them to a point where it's actively preventing them from making visceral and honest experiences, and having a good time. Dissecting things, and looking at the parts too closely, has a tendency to rob things of their meaning and effect. It suddenly vaporizes. It's like the demon that vanishes when you call out his true name. The shape and form remain, but the "soul" bounced. Might sound esoteric, but there's a ton of practical truth to that.

I avoid all that nowadays. Jeez, I've been playing games for over 20 years. I'm more than knowledgeable about that shit, no need to "prove" that to myself any more. I'm trying to take things for what they are, with an open mind and unprejudiced. And most importantly, I'm trying to have a good time. It's rare enough as it is, I think most games suck. But that's a quick observation, I don't get hung up on it.

The other half of it is there's not much discussion to be had from talking the game up. You don't grow as a person from just talking about how great everything is and agreeing with each other. People had their initial "spoiler was awesome!" moments early on, and now they're talking about things that are preventing them or hampering their enjoyment of the game.

That's the part where I disagree - I think that talking about stuff that irks me is the lamest thing I could imagine, it's not any fun, and I certainly don't wanna hear other people bitch about stuff they dislike. Why would I? It's this whole celebration of out-laming each other. The notion that people apparently don't have a lot to say to each other if all they do is to agree strikes me as massively odd and kind of sad. That's exactly where this over-analytic, pseudo-"informed" mindset leads to.

I sure as hell don't grow as a person by carping about stuff. If anything, it makes people shrink. It makes them petty, narrow-minded, peevish and unreceptive. What makes you grow is discovery, appreciation, shared experience and shared enthusiasm. It's kind of hard to have that kind of conversation with people today - everyone's so ridiculously conditioned into apparently believing that they're supposed to talk about flaws and shit they don't like.

It was a bit different when I was a kid, we had magazines, but we didn't have the internet and all that ... we had our opinions about which games sucked and why. But that wasn't the focus. We spent more time talking about the cool stuff we really dug. It was more honest, more pure, uncontrived. And really, we didn't have to be overly "expertly" informed to be able to tell a crap game from a good one, and leave the shitty ones on the shelf.

I've never seen anything perfect in my whole life. The greatest things have flaws. Who the heck cares? Who's gonna focus on being pissed about some stupid shit that isn't quite right when the overall experience is actually fascinating and brilliant? Especially with things like Dark Souls, because the whole sublime magic of the series comes from the extremely intense experience, the good and the bad of it ... it's very, very unique in the gaming world in the sense that it truly is a game that actually is much more than just the sum of its parts (the tech, the features, the design decisions ...). It's one of those rare cases where truly "your rules don't apply here".

It's not that I'm oblivious to the flaws or that I'm over-hyping things to myself or anything - it's just that as long as the experience is predominantly enjoyable, I can live with flaws ... all of life is like that.

[barackopala]

So you essentially are angry because people can recognize bad stuff in a good game like dark souls 3? something something fanboy please...
I love souls games, to death but its my love for the games that creates the need for the games to improve, the criticisms dont make DS3 a lesser experience, it's just not up to par in certain aspects.

[Lysah]

Just hopping into this argument to say ds3 is almost definitely the worst game in the series, glad I didn't pay for it myself. Coming from someone who beats the game once and never plays it again, feels like they made 3 way more casual and removed a lot of the "charm" of it. Even as a casual myself, a lot of the appeal is missing.