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robogart · 7 months

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I'm playing Dark Souls 3 right now and I have some thoughts/wonder if other people have experienced something similar?

So I've played through DS1, Bloodborne (favorite) and Elden Ring - really enjoyed all of those (except for the Lost Izalith area in DS1, woof) but I find myself really struggling with the enemies - specifically the Toughest Guys In The Area - so much? And it's sort of like "yeah, doy, that's what it's supposed to be?" but hear me out!

It just feels like that they not only have a lot of HP, but also punishing hits, SEVERELY long combos, and they also just don't stun or their parry windows feel SO small? Even trying to side-dodge or move around them is usually punished by the combo because they'll have back-reach that hits you anyways.

And the fact that they'll maybe introduce one of these Big Lads and you're like "okay cool, got it" but then from then on there are like 2-3 of them all together in your path (not like, guarding a good item in a little corner, they're in your progression route) and it's like?? What is going on? Granted I'm a dex build but that's what I play most my first/second playthroughs as, but I feel like the other games always felt more fair/surmountable in their encounters? I felt like I usually had a chance and the layout seemed balanced? But in DS3 I feel just SWAMPED by the amount of heavy-hitters there will be all together, and I find myself just having to run past them.

And it's not for lack of trying! I just feel like ONE misstep and I get caught in a Stupidly Fast combo! It's so much! ;; w ;;

And I'm ALMOST done with the game! Currently doing the Ringed City DLC right now before I get to the final game boss. And the boss fights have really been spectacular! I just did the Ariandel big boss and they were GREAT - had to summon help because I was getting spanked in the third phase, but it was SO FUN!! It's also so much fun to help other people! Jolly cooperation let's go!

But I don't know - I feel like this game is just less balanced feeling than the other titles? I love the weapons system, the boss fights, the areas and enemy design - but I feel like the enemy layout is just unreasonable at times - more times than I feel it should be? I feel like I've read that they used the same enemy ai as they had in bloodborne, so maybe that's where the misalignment sits for me? That game had a great fighting system that awarded aggression from aggression, your character is always meant to move fast and doesn't roll heavy or anything because armor isn't AS important as it is in Dark Souls, and the parry system was SET to be used in tandem with all enemies. And I feel like you could argue that Elden Ring is similar with DS3 with its enemies, but I feel like that game gives you SO much space, ease of movement (torrent) and the ashes system, so you're able to get some heat off you (especially if you're playing lighter builds). It just feels more balanced to me!

Ahh anyways - trying to gear up to maybe continue a bit more tonight! I'm so close... = __ =;; But I just wanted to rant and was curious is other people felt the same or not? I'll concede when something is a skill-issue in games - especially these games, where a lot of it IS learning the patterns and/or parrying - but somehow DS3 just feels weirdly stacked. Is it just me? Jesus?

#dark souls 3 #ds3 #ds3 thoughts

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marina-the-witch · 9 days

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My Souls Hot Takes

Decided to write up a couple of my less popular opinions for souls games. Please don't get upset over any of these, if you disagree that's totally valid

Dark Souls 1:

Bell Gargoyles is my favorite base game boss

I don't like Ornstein and Smough that much

Gwyn's theme is nowhere near as sad or dramatic as its made out to be in my opinion

Painted World isnt fun to me at all

Tomb of the Giants isnt that bad

I miss the whimiscal 80s fantasy aesthetic the series lost in the following entries even if i understand it narratively

Dark Souls 2:

I'm not just a hater or fail to appreciate an underrated gem, I simply dont enjoy this game

I think Darklurker is mid and the runback gimmick is stupid

The world and lore arent that much better to me than any other souls games and dont save the game

Life Gems are actually pretty okay

Old Dragonslayer is really not that big of a deal

Royal Rat Vanguard is the single worst boss in souls to me

Fume Knight is just kinda alright to me, I enjoy Sir Alonne much more

The health cap loss fucking sucks i hate it

Its perfectly fine to both love and hate this game please calm tf down

Dark Souls 3:

Soul of Cinder isnt that exciting, I might just be biased though bc i started the DS games with 3

Jailers arent that bad, Thralls are way worse

Ancient Wyvern kinda funny tbh

I really really dislike Sister Friede

The random wolf guy in ariandel is the wost boss in 3

Corvian Knights are the coolest enemy in the trilogy

The game isnt actually as ugly and monotone as people say

Pontiff Sulyvahn is sooooo mid to me I could not care less for his parry bait jojo stand ass goofy fight

Yhorm is such a nothing boss without the siegward narrative to me

Demon Prince solos literally any other duo boss and its not even close

R1 and O spam is a dark souls staple to me, not DS3 exclusive at all

Dragonslayer Armor and Oceiros are insanely underrated

Sekiro:

Demon of Hatred actually slaps

Corrupted Monk actually slaps

Great Shinobi Owl is really mid to me, too gimmicky

Guardian Ape has the same issues as DoH just to a lesser extend

The 2 giant beast (serpent and carp) area hazards are so good

Souls should give underwater another shot imo

Most of the minibosses are kinda bad to me

Bloodborne:

Laurence is actually peak

Not really a fan of Maria's fight, gonna replay the game soon to see if it'll finally click

Winter Lanters are pretty cool

Micolash fans are weird why are there so many

Yharnam Sunrise is the most boring ending of any souls game

As much as i would love it, I cant feasibly see a logical contuination of the Bloodborne universe

Saw Spear mid idc

Chalice Dungeons are both infinitely better and worse than people say I really dont know how to feel about them

Simon's Bowblade is one of the coolest weapons in fiction

Elden Ring:

Morgott is underrated

Dragons are underrated

Placidusax's theme is kinda eh to me

Radahn and Malenia are equal, both fandoms can stfu, it said fought to a standstill for a reason

Rykard is genuinely a good fight even with the gimmick in mind

I don't care for vyke, frenzy, shabriri or any other madness hoobla

I hate using great spears so much

Summons are VALID. If they were cheating they wouldnt be in the game. Get over yourself

Idc how much you can counter it I dont like malenia's waterfowl dance and health regain

Godskin Duo isn't that bad, the REAL enemy is valiant gargoyles

Royal Revenants, Birds and Runebears at least have the decency to be rare... Imps and Lobsters though

Volcano Manor is underrated as fuck, such a unique level for a souls game with so much cool lore and visual flare

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weatherman667 · 6 months

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Bloodborne

Finally got it. Glad I waited until it was at bargain bin prices.

I was going to go easy on it, until I looked up the release dates, and yes, I was right, Dark Souls 2 released a year before Bloodborne. I thought I got the order wrong, because Bloodborne is infinitely inferior to Dark Souls 2.

To do this, we have to ask ourself what makes a Dark Souls game?

Punishing cruelty?

Dark, decaying once great kingdom?

Tank controls?

Well, Dark Souls is known for being tough, but fair. It's incredibly fair, but this means that game can be incredibly tough.

The dark and decaying once great kingdoms have a story and weight to them.

In Bloodborne is seems like they tried to turn Dark Souls into Devil May Cry, failed, and slapped on a gruesome Victorian veneer to make it seems deep.

It makes the game easier, but also makes it less fair, and this is because of the introductions of firearms. Which, funny enough, Devil May Cry audibly telegraphs ranged attacks, allowing you to dodge without even seeing it. One of the first enemies you face has a rifle that can hit you in ways the game engine simply would not allow you to fight back. But, it's a rifle? You can get inside it's range?

No.

For those not used to Dark Souls games, distance is absolutely vital. The difference of an inch will turn an axe attack into a haft attack. The different of a couple degrees will turn a normal attack into a back stab.

And...

Bloodborne doesn't have a back stab. Or a parry.

Seriously, did no one on the Bloodborne team ever play a Dark Souls game? Because backstabbing is kind of important in a Dark Souls game.

Bloodborne gives you firearms... that you cannot aim. It also gives you Quicksilver bullets, which is an interesting idea, exceptit also not only gives you a justification for not needing Quicksilver bullets, it gives you a way to manufacture bullets really, really easily. With your own blood. They could have saved the Quicksilver Bullets for bosses? Like Metro does with pre-war ammo.

They also don't let you aim. You have one button to use the gun, rather than simply making it like bows are, which is treated like any other weapons.

They also decide to make all weapons Trick Weapons. So, each Trick (main) weapon has two different modes. My first one was the... something cane. Basically a whip-sword that looks like a cane. It works a lot like the Puzzling Stone Sword from DS2 DLC, except inferior in every single way.

If they were going to make firearms a single button press, and a key part of the gameplay, they could have, say, given it a face button, like say []. If you eliminate the mode change and fire from the shoulder buttons, you have four buttons, which could have integrated all of the trick weapon's attacks into a single form. User interface is just something that sticks in my craw. If they didn't to leave /\ as a two-hand button, which would allow you to still block and parry.

Conclusion: Is it a bad game? No. Just not as good as a Dark Souls game.

#bloodborne #video games

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crediblebombthreat · 2 years

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Incomplete List of Fucked Up and Evil Things I've Done in Souls Games

The PS5 Demon's Souls remake brought in a lot of people who had no idea how to play souls games. So after 20 successful invasions in a row I made a character with the rule that I could only kill people after parrying them. This didn't slow down the slaughter at all, and I think just made fighting against me even more demoralizing.

In Elden Ring, I made this character named "Bleeding is Fair" and went on a two hour journey to get two thrusting swords and a bleed infusion for both. I didn't level up once during that entire affair, so I spent the next few hours invading people who had just made new characters and were exploring the first areas. Unspeakable amounts of carnage. Because of how the dual wield thrusting sword moveset works, anyone who hid behind a shield got absolutely shredded. Utterly unfair. I only stopped when I invaded these two people with the names "Gamer BF" and "Gamer GF," I killed Gamer BF and then Gamer GF used the dejection emote and stopped fighting. :C

In Dark Souls 3, there's this thing you can do to be a purple invader. You aren't an enemy or an ally, but a secret third thing. Anyway, I invaded as a purple guy in an early game area and noticed that the host was really struggling with this group of enemies. So I helped him kill one. Then I aggroed like 5 more and jumped off a cliff to leave him to fend for himself.

I made a bloodtinge build in Bloodborne.

Demon's Souls has this boss that's actually a real human person (Old Monk). Obviously, I loved being the Old Monk. The issue is, to fight this boss, players have to go up a huge set of stairs filled with some really frustrating and bullshit enemies. Imagine, if you will, that you're a player. You summon a friend. You both use bows to slowly kill the enemies leading up to the Old Monk fight. This takes five minutes. You both try to attack through the door to see if the person is trying to use some scummy magic to kill you. He doesn't! This is good! You both enter the door, and within about ten seconds I've parried and one-shot you both. Better luck next time! This exact set of events happened with SHOCKING regularity. We're talking upwards of 20 times across several months.

In Elden Ring I used the Giant Crusher to flatten people going up an elevator several times. There is basically no way they would have known I was there unless they had some level of intuition or self-preservation (no one co-oping souls games has these qualities), so it just kept working.

The PS5 Demon's Souls remake has this ring that lets you walk through swamp water like it's nothing instead of a thick goo that slows you down by like 50,000%. So I would get that ring really early on and then invade people in the swamp area, trapping them on the little islands because they couldn't move faster than me. I'd let them damage me a bit so they'd get greedy, run into the swamp, and then I'd move faster and backstab them. This worked literally every time.

In one of the last areas of Elden Ring, there's this boss that requires you to juggle aggro in a really irritating way, so a lot of people summon for it. I invaded there a lot, and used the numerous and powerful enemies there as friends to put people in awful situations that made it to where they HAD to take damage. Did a successful 1v3s in this area just by being patient. One of them took like 15 minutes and 90% of it was me just wasting the everyone's time until they got greedy and died. Which was incredibly lame of me.

In Elden ring, there's this mini-dungeon that's really fun to invade in (Wyndham Catacombs for those who are curious). It's not really fun to invade in because you're guaranteed to win (I think only like 30-40% of my invasions there were successful). It's fun to invade in because when you do succeed, it's utterly humiliating for the host. We're talking ladders that take 10 seconds to climb up so you can either prep a one shot or just stall everyone until they're willing to tank a hit. We're talking little corners that allow you to surprise people with the nasty dragon vape spell. We're talking a GIANT room with a moving floor that will squish you if you stay in it for too long, so you can lure people in there and push them out of the safe spots so they get flattened. I can guarantee I've ruined some people's days with this one.

Finally, in Demon's souls remake, I made a character that ONLY leveled magic. Because of how powerful magic is in Demon's souls, I was able to make it to new game plus easily. Here's a shitty video I made like 2 years ago showing how it went. I don't think I can describe it accurately with words. This was not cool of me to do.

#soulsborne #elden ring #bloodborne #dark souls #reallygreatposts

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xenodile · 8 months

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Alright, I finished Lies of P on stream today, so I guess I can give my review of it.

Very solid overall, strong early game makes an excellent first impression, with a few little nitpicks that turn into consistent frustrations as the game reaches its finale. The music and presentation is excellent, combat feels smooth and responsive, if you're familiar with Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Lies of P will feel comfortably familiar.

In terms of replay value from multiple runs, it's a bit of a mixed bag. The weapon modification system of mix and matching handles and blades to create totally new weapons to fit any kind of stat spread means Lies of P has the largest weapon catalogue of any Souls-like I've seen, so there's always a new weapon to try out whenever you start a new run. The flipside is that the game is completely linear and only has 2 endings, so if you're looking to vary up the sequence of your run you'll likely be disappointed.

The game is also quite challenging, and not always in the best way. Of the game's 13 mandatory major bosses, 6 have two health bars, three of which are fought back to back. Furthermore, the game touts its perfect guard system to force enemies to stagger and break their weapons, but by the halfway mark these systems feel less and less impactful. Later in the game, you encounter enemies with no weapons to break or weapons so durable that you'd have to do nothing but perfect block so many attacks, or so much poise that if feels like perfect blocking has no effect. It turns from a reward for good timing and skill to the bare minimum to progress as not perfect blocking will causes you to take tremendous amounts of damage from blocked attacks.

On the subject of the game's difficulty, Lies of P inherits Sekiro's perilous attacks, in which the enemy glows red and plays a sound effect to warn of an unblockable attack that can only be stopped by a Perfect Guard. While Sekiro gave the player many ways to deal with different types of unblockables with the memorable Mikiri Counter, jumping into a head stomp, and so on, fatal attacks in Lies of P are binary. Either you perfect block or you take unavoidable damage, and the timing on some of these attacks is very finicky. An overwhelming number of enemies in Lies of P have attack animations that consist of a laboriously slow wind up into near instantaneous active frames with no tell or warning. These attacks are effectively unreactable and so they only way to deal with them is to just...keep getting hit until you fish out the right parry timing by chance and then hope you can repeat it. It's very frustrating, especially when most bosses can have multiple attacks of this nature. Some enemies also have grabs or true unblockables, which cannot be blocked or perfect blocked, and the game does not give you the courtesy of warning you which ones, which can further add to the frustration.

The game's story is enjoyable and engaging, with plenty of little secrets to uncover and leads to pursue that give the player things to think about, the but its english localization is...subpar. While I cannot confirm it as such, I was told by someone in my chat that the game was machine translated, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. It's hardly the worst case ever seen, but the english script has some very awkward grammar and syntax in multiple areas, as well as clumsy word choice. The actual voice acting is excellent for most of the cast, it's specifically english grammar and word choice that seems off.

The game's greatest weakness is its pacing. As you near the 80% mark of the game, a significant change occurs in the game world that signifies the coming of the end, ramping up to a grand confrontation that just...drags on and on and on for far longer than it should. The final area has more checkpoints than any other zone in the game and is an agonizingly slow crawl through a generic gray environment with almost nonsensical enemy choice and placement. Progressing this one area took me almost 10 hours by itself when most other sections of the game took me 2 or 3 at most when I was thoroughly exploring and backtracking for items and sidequests, and it utterly ruins the sense of urgency the game's narrative attempts to instill in you when you arrive.

As I said before, I do like Lies of P quite a bit and would easily recommend it to anyone that enjoys games like Sekiro or Bloodborne, but it has glaring flaws that are all the more prominent when help up next to the game's good points. The frustrating, unfun bosses stick out when you remember all the incredibly fun bosses you fought before and after them. The slow dull irritating sections linger when compared to the faster paced and more engaging parts.

The game clocks in at a very impressive length if you're scrounging for secrets and optional areas, and given its overall quality I would say it is worth its $60 price tag, but only if you are already acquainted with other game in its style as I've mentioned previously.

#Lies of P

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shuttershocky · 2 years

Note

Doctor goes to slap Irene's forehead while she's sleeping, only to, immediately upon contact, hear the noise of glass breaking while Irene shouts "ROYAL GUARD" and frame-perfectly parries Doctor, breaking all of his bones simultaneously.

It is gut-bustingly funny to me that Irene ended up becoming a Dante expy in the eyes of the fans when Hypergryph had set her up to be The Good Hunter.

She was introduced in the Not-Bloodborne event, was a newbie Inquisitor who was new to the village and tried to help the villagers only to see them descending into madness, was armed with a blade and a pistol, and fought against the Abyssal Hunters who are literally The Old Hunters.

But then Hypergryph got greedy. They thought they could also make her slick and throw enemies into the air only to shoot them down with her pistol, or have a jumping spinning attack with guns blazing. And so, all their effort to make her a Bloodborne character went down the drain, and now she's quite clearly a Dante expy.

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diejager · 2 months

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My aim and dodging abilities are not good either XD and if I manage to parry or dodge while remaining with a good portion of the health bar... it is pure luck~ even tho I keep dying, I continue playing. Due to this, have received mixed comments from brother and father who usually just watch me play LOL:

Father: You are stubborn or have a lot of determination

Brother: You are a sadist and masochist

-🌀

XDDDD I would keep playing to if I wasn’t borrowing the games from the library! But I would die before buying a game as expensive as Elden Ring or Bloodborne.

Oh oh oh, and have you seen the DLC?! We’re finally seeing Miquella! And he looks so fucking cool!!! I can’t wait to watch someone play the DLC.

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less-than-three-3 · 7 months

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Lies of P might be the best souls game I've played

this is only half a joke tbh

There's so much talk about how yeah it might be one of the best soulslikes out there but it still can't reach the quality of the Fromsoft games and I'm just like... no, Neowiz has really got the baton and delivered a really great evolution of the linear Souls "genre".

There are definitely some rough spots (but so do the Souls games) but what they've presented and improved on is truly magnificent. It's not Bloodborne x Sekiro (PLEASE STOP SAYING THIS OML), but it is very much its own thing and does what it sets out to do very well, in a lot of aspects. Full ramblings below, some spoilers likely.

I want to preface everything I am going to say by reiterating that, though this delivers a lot of Souls elements excellently (and some not), this is very much its own game, and not only stands on its own two feet but runs a mile with them. I feel like a lot of folks play Soulslike games (even by Fromsoft themselves lol) and expect all their skills and knowledge to transfer over, or expect mechanics to work and present themselves just like in Souls games, and it's because those are the golden standard for many people. I get it, but it's still kind of meaningless - not because "the games can't compete/compare with them" but because they do different things and excel at providing different experiences; they may be "souls-like" in nature but there are so many different directions one could take with the genre.

And so I was elated to really get to know the mechanics of Lies of P (I'll refer to it as LoP). I won't lie, when I played the demo, I didn't really get it yet, so I definitely felt a little frustrated, but once you get the hang of it, the controls are so satisfying the whole way through (like the Souls games! wow!). I think maybe a lot of people forget that this learning curve is a huge part of what makes the Souls games tick, because they've put in so many hours into "getting good", and so when they have to go back up the curve, they feel frustrated again.

The main thing is, obviously, the parry system, which is pretty much the mechanic LoP really uses to separate itself from the From catalogue. Is it like Sekiro? Yeah sure yes both games use perfect parries to build stagger, but I contend that it is even still very distinct from Sekiro's parry system. In Sekiro, the game is the parry system, it's more or less how you actually kill most bosses, with Vitality only acting as a way to make progress to help you build up stagger.

In LoP, there's two big things that make it very different. The first is obvious as soon as you fight that first big dude with the parry tooltip - attack patterns are not nearly as rhythmic and fast paced as in Sekiro, mostly. Long windups and big tells make some aspects of getting used to parrying easy, but at the same time the timings can be very tricky and can demand a lot of attention. This alone really contributes to a very different game feel, even though they are both, nominally "perfect parry" systems.

Another thing is that the parry timing window is quite tight. Some would say it's too tight, but I honestly think a lot would be lost if the parrying were too easy. In Sekiro, the parry window is actually quite wide, but locks you out and heavily punishes you for fishing for parries, forcing you to be methodical and patient even if fights get hectic. In LoP, it's quite the opposite - there's a lot of time between attacks often, and it forces decision making and risk/reward between attempting to parry, blocking (and taking the rally-able damage), dodging, or hitting them (and maybe having time to parry or dodge still).

The delicate balance between these options is very important; if parrying were always the right option, then yeah it would just be Sekiro - that's not interesting. But perfect parrying is not the only way to build stagger which makes all options at least somewhat useful, and you can even build your p-organ (lol) and whetstone to help you build stagger with just attacks, more like Elden Ring's charged R2 stagger fishing. Sometimes if you aren't comfortable with a parry timing, then the right play is to dodge or block. Insisting there is only one right answer for approaching any given boss is inherently antithetical to this game's design - and I'd argue to Souls games in general.

And this brings me to another common complaint - the dodge isn't that good, and upgrade should not have been locked behind p-organ. I also really disagree with this, in part because I didn't actually really think the p-organ upgrades were that game changing. But it is also in part that if the dodge is too strong, like a DS3 roll, then again that balance is thrown out of wack and dodging becomes the right answer too often. This is still a "parry game", and if dodge becomes preferable to parrying, that's an issue. Parrying shouldn't be the only answer, but it also shouldn't be much weaker than other options. Additionally, having an especially weaker dodge at the beginning forces those stubborn Souls players to stop mashing the dodge button and force them to actually learn and engage with the parry mechanics - nudging you to learn without blatantly telling you to.

I did really enjoy the p-organ as a way to express and expand a player's build choices, though I felt like some nodes and slots were just completely useless, and the choice for which 2 nodes to go for was too obvious. If it were, for example, +1 heal, improved dodge, increased stagger damage, and damage mitigation, or something, that's a very compelling choice to do. But I don't use the cube and I don't think the stagger window is too short, etc., so I felt like some slots were just not that interesting. Phase 4 is a great example of a very compelling node choice, and I wished all of them were like that.

Though speaking of build choices, holy fucking shit this game's build options are SO COOL! I absolutely loved the modular weapon system, and I respecced a good few times to play with various different weapon combinations. The boss weapons were a little disappointing to me but that's ok because goddamn the weapon customization system carried the hell out of the game. I do wish the slash vs. stab proficiency wasn't as prominent but even with that, I was able to make so many silly weapons. Big sawblade baton/cleaver (which carried a lot of my playthrough), rocket wrench, crit dagger spear, etc.

Being able to use a blade I liked, keeping its upgrades, with a new handle that has a new moveset is just such an incredible idea that I can't believe From never thought of something like it. Each part also has their own weapon arts, and while they were a little homogenous at times, this kind of system has huge potential, especially if you can make it Ash of War-like and become a third layer of modularity. For a build diversity fanatic this was a goldmine, and I can see myself replaying it to get the other endings with a bunch of other weapon combinations and builds. For me, this was easily the best part of the game.

Something else I really liked that I think maybe would go under the wayside in discussions is how they present the story and quests. Souls fans might not like it if it feels too "handholdy" but I really appreciated the game telling me "yeah this NPC has shit to say to you right now". And the story itself was honestly pretty impressive, with some Souls-like "world discovery" moments but also mainly straightforwardly presenting moments and arcs, however intertwined. I did not expect what outwardly just looks like an edgy Pinocchio adaptation to have so much interesting lore, history, and plot moments. Probably one of the biggest surprise hits of the game for me.

But for as much as they really took the Souls formula and ran with it and elevated it, there are definitely some things I wished were improved on. The map design, both visually and in layout, was pretty disappointing. It's aesthetically good for sure, but nowhere near what From delivers. And in terms of layout, the maps are really quite linear, sure with twists and turns but hardly any exploration or branches to check out - map design elements I have come to know and love from playing the Soulsborne games.

Boss design I also felt was just a bit too inspired from Souls. Don't get me wrong, I think the boss quality is actually quite high and fits very well generally with the game's mechanics. But there are some bosses where I'm just like, ok I get why you wanted to include this because Souls has a habit of doing these, but you really didn't have to. There are a couple of bosses with extra appendages that swing after attacks (one especially takes after Gael, which I know people love, but..), and that's just really annoying to try to parry and I feel like I either end up bsing the parry, or I just eat the block chip damage. There are couple gank bosses... woo... I guess... But I did really enjoy most of the bosses (though nothing is breaking my top 10, probably). Just, I could really tell that this sure is a love letter to the Souls games from the boss design lol.

The music is actually quite good - boss themes and especially the records you collect are beautiful. But I am once again pretty disappointed by most of the game just being silent, which is a carry over from the Souls trilogy that I really wish did not carry over. Especially because there are segments that do have music that I really loved - notably the final area and the church with the organ music playing that fades out as you get further away from the main chapel. I dunno, it's not really worse than in the Souls games, but it just stings that much more that there is some really great music that they kind of just confine to the record player, which shows to me that they can make great ambient music but just didn't want to make any for the actual areas.

But despite that, overall, I truly loved playing this game. I think I honestly enjoyed it more than the Souls trilogy for sure, and maybe even more than Bloodborne (Sekiro and Elden Ring are still solidly near-perfect experiences and hard to beat). It plays nothing like Bloodborne, and is very distinct from Sekiro and the Souls games; it very boldly and excellently carves its own space within the genre. And with that post-credits scene (for which the big reveal was fucking hilarious), I surely cannot wait for what they make next, either a sequel or DLC, and the improvements they'll bring, as they expand this fairy-tale-verse (lol).

#lies of p

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serpentsembrace · 2 years

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Bloodborne D&D Rules!

A while back, I mentioned that I'd be running a Bloodborne one-shot and would be coming up with some extra rules for it. I haven't run the one-shot yet, but I think I have a set of fairly straightforward rules that you should be able to use in your own games! I haven't included stats for individual weapons, but the rules I've explained here should give a good framework for them. If people want, I may share the ones my players end up using, so others can see how I went about it. Some of the rules below I would change for a long-form campaign, but for a party of level 5s that are unlikely to have a healer, this should suffice. I recommend treating PCs with these tools as a couple of levels higher than they actually are, since these certainly increase their power.

In any case, here you go, see below the cut for those tasty, tangy mechanics!

Weapons

Trick Weapons. Most weapons in Bloodborne will "transform" in some way - most often by unfolding, splitting, extending, or otherwise altering the way they are wielded. There are exceptions, but most weapons will follow this template.

Base damage = 1d8 + your Strength or Dexterity modifier

Transformed damage = 1d10 + your Strength or Dexterity modifier, and add or modify a property of the weapon

Firearms. Firearms may be effective against men, but beasts and those from beyond are not easily deterred by such minor puncture wounds. Even so, they still have a place in a Hunter's arsenal. By placing a precise shot during a foe's attack, you can attempt a Parry and Riposte. using your reaction while wielding a one-handed firearm.

Alternatively, when you take the Attack action, you can use your bonus action to make a ranged attack with a one-handed firearm. However, doing so prevents you from using your reaction to attempt a Parry until the start of your next turn.

Special Actions

Transforming Attack. For many weapons, you can use your bonus action to turn one of your attacks with your action into a transforming attack, which transforms the weapon as part of the same attack, potentially adding damage or other effects.

Parry. While wielding a firearm or certain offhand weapons, you may use your reaction to attempt to parry a creature within 5 feet of you by firing a shot during an instant of vulnerability. Make a ranged weapon attack roll against the creature. On a hit, the creature is unable to continue attacking this turn, and you can immediately attempt a Riposte. If your parry attack misses, the attacking creature has advantage on all attack rolls made against you that it makes this turn.

Riposte. When you successfully Parry a creature's attack, if you are within 5 feet of it, you can immediately make a melee weapon attack with the same reaction you used to Parry. This attack is made with advantage, and if it hits, is considered a critical hit.

Other Equipment

Blood Vials. Standard healing item. As a bonus action, you can inject yourself with blood, instantly restoring 10 hit points to yourself. If you do so while within melee range of a hostile creature, this will trigger an attack of opportunity. You can also use your action to administer a Blood Vial to another creature within 5 feet of you. Each Hunter begins with 5 Blood Vials.

Quicksilver Bullets. Standard ammunition for firearms. Also consumed for certain special tools, weapons, or abilities, such as the Flamesprayer or the Church Cannon. Each Hunter begins with 20 of these bullets.

Blood Bullets. If a Hunter runs out of Quicksilver Bullets, their own blood can suffice. As a bonus action, you can choose to deal 8 points of necrotic damage to yourself in exchange for 5 Blood Bullets. This damage cannot be reduced in any way. When fired from a weapon, Blood Bullets deal additional damage on a hit equal to your Wisdom modifier. A Hunter can hold only 5 Blood Bullets at a time.

Beastblood Pellets. A small pill of concentrated beast blood, used to enhance a hunter’s melee prowess, but at a cost. See the rules for Beasthood for details.

New Mechanics

Eldritch Insight. This world is fraught with secrets beyond the sight of mere mortals. Eldritch Insight reveals these secrets, simultaneously making one more powerful and more vulnerable to the threats that flit between the gaps in reality. Each Hunter may choose to begin with 0-5 points of Eldritch Insight. A minimum of 3 points is required for spellcasting to be possible. In addition, there are benefits and detriments as follows.

For each point of Eldritch Insight you have above 3, when you deal damage with a spell, you add 1d6 to one of the spell's damage rolls, up to a maximum of 4d6.

For each point of Eldritch Insight you have, add +1 to all Insight, Investigation, and Perception checks.

For each point of Eldritch Insight you have, you may be asked by the DM to add to or subtract from certain saving throws.

Certain, terrible truths may be revealed to characters with larger amounts of Eldritch Insight.

Beasthood. Some hunters may seek to harness the strength of beasts for their own. But beware the ire of a blood-drunk hunter. As a bonus action, you can ingest a beastblood pellet. When you do so, you gain the following benefits for 1 minute.

1. Each time you successfully hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you gain 1 point of Beasthood. Your Beasthood Score is equal to the number of Beasthood points you have minus the number of Eldritch Insight points you have.

2. You gain the additional effects based on your current Beasthood Score Each as listed below. Each tier of effects also includes the effects of the previous tier.

3. Unless fully transformed, your Beasthood Score decreases by 1 each time you end your turn without hitting a creature with a melee weapon attack.

Beasthood Effects

Beasthood Score 1-3: You gain a bonus to your melee weapon damage rolls equal to your Beasthood Score.

Beasthood Score 4-6: You gain advantage on all melee attack rolls, and all attack rolls have advantage against you. In addition, you can use a bonus action to make an additional weapon attack when you take the attack action.

Beasthood Score 7-9: At the start of each of your turns, you must make a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw. On a success, you are able to act normally. On a failure, you can only take the Attack action this turn, targeting the closest creature to you, or choosing a target at random if the distance to two or more creatures is equal.

Beasthood Score 10+: The Wisdom saving throw DC increases to 16, and on a failure, you transform fully into a Beast and lose control of yourself. This transformation is believed to be irreversible.

#d&d #d&d 5e #d&d homebrew #d&d stuff #dnd #dnd 5e #dnd homebrew #dnd stuff #dungeons and dragons #dungeons & dragons #tabletop gaming #bloodborne #soulsborne #dnd one shot #bloodborne dnd

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dumbfinntales · 8 months

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After about 45 hours I finally beat Lies of P for the first time. Man, how lucky am I to play three complete bangers of games in a row? Lies of P was an amazing game, not perfect, but truly a gem in the rough. Click more blelow to read my full thoughts!

So what is Lies of P? It's like if the "we have bloodborne at home" meme was genuine and you play as twink Pinocchio who fights against mechanical puppets. Sounds ridiculous, right? But the game makes it work. The world might be based on the story of Pinocchio, but it goes into so many different wild directions. The lore, the characters and most importantly the atmosphere are so superb that I kept forgetting that I'm playing as Pinocchio. I really do like the story they went for and there are a ton of nods to the original Pinocchio story.

Lies of P is a souls like and probably the best one I've played. It is the closest that any souls like game has reached Fromsoft level of quality and truly feel like it. And I'd go as far as to say that this game does reach Fromsofts quality. Everything feels so pristine and so fine tuned. The art direction is godly, the enemy designs are wild and varied, the bosses are brutal and the world and its atmosphere are great. And the game feels really good to play, for the most part. But I'll get to my criticisms later.

One thing that they did a bit different from Fromsoft are the story and characters. The characters were real fun and I quite grew to like them, Venigni and Polendina for example. There was a lot more dialogue to each character so you really got to know them and what their story is, while in most Fromsoft games their stories are tragic, but you don't really get to know them. The games story is also very straightforward and most things are revealed to you in time. So it's not your usual Fromsoft "figure things out on your own" type of story telling. It's quite refreshing actually and there were some really nice story twists and revelations along the way.

Like I said previously the game feels really good to play. The combat is top notch and feels a lot like Bloodborne when it comes to combat options and speed. I'll give bonus points to Lies of P that you can fully upgrade multiple weapons per playthrough, while in Bloodborne you can only do two. One criticism or irk or whatever you wanna call it is the parry timing. Many people have talked about his online, and I agree. The parry timing is strict and combine that with extremely delayed attacks and you're in trouble. I wish the parry was a little more lenient because learning the pixel perfect timing for each boss is quite tedious. And the more attacks a boss has the more tedious it is.

This is not a criticism per se, but holy shit this game is hard. Far harder than any Fromsoft souls game. In fact it might be one of the hardest games I've ever played. The balance is a bit all over the place though, like most levels and basic enemies are easy to deal with, but bosses and mini bosses are brutal. I was stuck on a mini boss for like 50 minutes. That's how long a boss should take, not a mid level elite enemy. The game is this difficult because it asks so much of the player. You are somewhat squishy so you die quickly, bosses are relentless and the parry timing are extremely strict. Some enemies in this game have these overly delayed attacks that hang in the air for long and come down in fraction of a second and you can't possibly react to that in time. You gotta see that attack multiple times until you can predict when it comes down accurately. Many bosses in this game took me more than an hour to beat.

But despite being stuck on most bosses for so long I still persevered. As a personal challenge I did everything solo as well and I never really felt frustrated. Dunno why, but Lies of P sparked my classic enjoyment for souls bosses that Elden Ring killed.

I'm not sure where I'd rank Lies of P yet, but I'm really looking forward to any possible DLC or continuation. This developer has truly showed that they know how to make a tough as nails yet fun game, and they know how to craft an interesting and twisted world. Using a classic fairy tale no less!

#lies of p #a review type of deal

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