This is it, the final chapter.
Unfortunately once again seems the PC port got borked. All sorts of reported issues.
Mine starts up great, and has an excellent silky smooth framerate...but plays in slow motion. Game moves at about 5/6 of the speed it should, which makes the timing on attacks tricky, to put it mildly.
I've run into a couple of hiccups on my PC but nothing major. When I pick anything up, the game freezes for maybe two seconds. Also last night the game booted me to the title screen and gave me a message about the frame rate not being suitable for multiplayer. There were no noticeable frame rate issues though.
I think it was just the gods reminding me that I get up for work at 4:45am.
Anyway, the game is super fun so far. I was a little surprised when I was able to beat the first boss on the first try, but then I was quickly dispatched by a shirtless old guy with a katana. So the difficulty seems to still be there.
Should we spoiler stuff? As long as it's Firelink it's fine, but I think we should put spoilers for the first area and beyond.
Anyway, playing on PS4, so no performance problems: I've read around that you have to fiddle with settings and drivers a little, but after that PC works fine.
Anyway, cleared this afternoon the first area after Firelink and its boss, and swept trough almost all of the second and now at the second boss: sorceries got hit hard in this game compared to the first two. I mean, it's better than the first 15-hours in Bloodborne with an Arcane build, but still. :P
Speaking of BB, I really liked its faster paced combat, so DKS III combat is feeling a little clunky to me: though, I mostly chalk it up to not having found weapons that I like, and that now casting times take forever unless you invest in Dexterity (They changed a lot of stuff for the stats, in general).
One of the early chests is a mimic. From soft gunna troll.
As for the combat, Dark Souls has been more about shield work and
methodical combat
Yeah, spoiler tags would be appreciated.
It's proved an expensive game for me: my nVidia 660 ran in slow motion at about 5 fps on lowest settings, so I had to upgrade it (which I'd been intending to do anyway). On my shiny new GT970, it runs at 60fps almost flawlessly.
Enjoying it so far, although not had much time to play it. Some tough enemies, and
For those who haven't seen it, the launch trailer. Some boss spoilers but things go quick. Awesome music.The fire fades
One of the early chests is a mimic. From soft gunna troll.
As for the combat, Dark Souls has been more about shield work and
methodical combat
It has?
The only time I used a shield in any of the three games I started getting my ass kicked so I went back to roly-poly.
*Shrug* I've seen people snap the games in two with an unleveled character and a spiked club. Maybe a first time player is encouraged to explore carefully and learn timings with a shield buffer.
Yah, I find shields useful when I'm exploring and area and walking around with it raised in case enemies try to jump on me, but I usually ditch it and iframe trough stuff when I'm against a boss or a tough enemy.
@shadram: You nailed the description of that boss.
I've really liked the design of that area, though: the branching level that converged later on was very cool, and both paths look like are significantly easier if you take them from the back. I was this close to the bonfire near the magic fat guy on top of the plank, but I used an homeward bone there because I was out of Estus and with a ton of souls, and didn't want to risk them by sprinting forward and getting killed. There was a big facepalm on my part when I came there from the other direction and realized I should just have run under the guy and would have found a bonfire. <.<
Im really digging these quest lines with certain npcs. I never was able to do Lucatiel's in DS2. The combat feels the fastest it's been yet and every mob has a disgusting 5 or 6 hit combo if you get overly cocky.
The only annoying bit is I cant find a Faith weapon for the life of me.
Faith seems kinda meh right now but I got my Lightning Spears so Ive got that going for me. And practically infinite healing.
Invasions are wayyy harder for the invader now that priority for invasions go to hosts with a phantom. Half the time it is a fustercluck of phantoms smashing you into a corner since the host can have up to three friends with them.
I lost all my cracked red eye orbs without winning a single one =(
Tree Boss was easy. Hes got like three weakpoints that take out a 4th of his health.
Playing on Keyboard for PC...not easy. Strongly considering buying a Controller
@Scavion: Yeah, the problem I had with that boss was
By the way, you mentioned you're out of red eye orbs? I'm way behind you (just peeked into the spoilers and went no, I don't know the names of these ares), and I think I can already pick the full red orb: testing tonight. You have to...
Got the orb last night. I'd say its in a fairly good location to make the early levels invasion scene quite lively. Had some decent success with it too. Maces are bad pvp weapons by the way.
But eventually I got tired since I was up at like 4am doing that. Maybe Ill go fight the boss of that area today.
Really enjoying this game, now that I'm past the stupid boss I mentioned above.
I'm now two areas beyond that in the
Cathedral of the deep is interesting. I kept getting bleed build up in the outside areas, and no idea what causes it. Rather frustrating to deal with.
The giants inside... I don't really get what I'm supposed to do. I can raise 2 of the gates, and one time the third (middle one) was raised, but no idea how (after the boss at the end of the area, maybe? That boss was super easy, at least). And then betrayal, gate came down, giant squished me and I can't figure out how to raise the gate again... This is one spoiler that I wouldn't mind getting if anyone knows how to do it... I'm guessing the gates can be used to trap the giants somehow, but I can't get them to chase me out of their goo.
Just started, now for that bloody 1GB patch. :p
I've progressed some more today, and offed the first Lord of Cinder.
Currently in the are where shadram is, but only entered the building some 15 minutes ago.
And you can kill the giants inside of the Cathedral, they don't respawn. Or, at least, I killed one, have yet to find the second. For the mounting bleed, I discovered how to get rid of it by pure coincidence: it's caused by the attacks of either the leech-men or leech-hollows, and to cure it you have to pull out a torch. Maybe it's because they throw leeches at you and the fire scares them away?
In other news, I decided to ditch sorcery, and invested in some Faith for Pyromancy: until now, sorcery scaling has been abysmal and really unfun to play as, with big windups before spells even if they inflict less damage than correspondent Pyromancies. I really don't want to do like Bloodborne another time, where an Arcane build started picking up only in the late game and I played with several levels of wasted stats for most of the game.
Plus, in today's patch, a lot of stuff got buffed (mostly all of the Greatswords and some of the UGS): only two spells were touched, Soul Greatsword and Farron Flashblade, and I can't see a difference in the first and the second got slower, with the same damage as before. <.<
So, how are people doing? I'm currently stuck on a boss...
He tears trough my health in two hits, I can take two hit with my shield before he breaks my guard, and he has something like a 6 hit combo and a super fast poke. I've tried to parry him, but I can't pull it off as consistently as I did in the previous games. :(
So, how are people doing? I'm currently stuck on a boss...
** spoiler omitted **
I got me a Steam controller. Game is much easier than when I was trying to play it on a keyboard but it took me 2 days to get the controller working properly.
I'm feeling that this is less a farewell to the Souls series and more a burning down the house like with Bioshock:Infinate
Plus the quests for NPCs that can go to Firelink are confusing and you can get them killed without knowing a single reason why.
So, how are people doing? I'm currently stuck on a boss...
** spoiler omitted **
Have you tried rolling?
I've just killed the third Lord of Cinder, so I guess I'm quite far through now, just the final central throne left to fill...
Getting to Anor Londo was a nice surprise, suddenly followed by the thoughts "Oh god no, not again!" Fortunately Aldrich was rather easier than Ornstein and Smough...
I loved Irithyll, its Dungeons and the Profaned Capital. Possibly my favourite bits of any Souls game that I've played (finished 1 and 2, but not Demon Souls or Bloodbourne since I don't have a Playstation).
I gotta wonder why they decided to drive home the point of characters like Gwyndolin,White Lady and Quelana dying. Their fates are pretty much moot regardless of which ending is taken.
Big speculations on the lore. Supposedly Ludleth(The first Lord of Cinder you meet at Firelink) did a timey-wimy ball thing when Gundyr failed to get back in time to prevent the First Flame from going out, which might of effectively been YOUR fault if you fought Gundyr at the Untended Graves since that is supposedly the past.
I've just killed the third Lord of Cinder, so I guess I'm quite far through now, just the final central throne left to fill...
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **I've just killed the third Lord of Cinder, so I guess I'm quite far through now, just the final central throne left to fill...
** spoiler omitted **
If you have access to Vow of Silence miracle, it turns him into a punching bag.
Man, Chapel of the Deep is a slog. oh jeez, I wrecked my friendship with Giantbow buddy by killing a friend of his.
Greatshield+mace guards are way more trouble than they are worth.
Am now in Ithryll of Boreal Valley and OH MY GAWD! Those twin dagger enemies are brutal and just won't stop spinning.
Am now in Ithryll of Boreal Valley and OH MY GAWD! Those twin dagger enemies are brutal and just won't stop spinning.
Yeah, they're horrible. Luckily there's not a huge amount of them, and most can be avoided. You do NOT want to pull two at once! It's an awesome part of the game, though, probably my favourite bit.
I got crushed after managing to put down the first three and fighting the hag/flame knight procession. Made my way up the road and let two dancers pass and snuck behind them. Checked out a bit of the side areas(oh how I should have gone for the bonfire) then tiptoed behind the dancers to check an alcove, spun the camera and had two dancers and a flame knight coming up behind me. There was a timed/triggered second procession hiding in a building that forced me back tot he first bonfire to do it all over again.
Oh Geriant! I'm so sorry, I forgot about fighting a boss before checking out Ithryll Dungeon. NG+ I promise.
Siegward, you where supposed to be effective against Yorm while I went for the other sword ,not get trapped in the corner and killed
Yeah the NPC aids for bosses are kind of terrible. The only boss I've seen where they were actually useful was the one in Cathedral of the Deep, and once you figured that boss out, it's fairly easy on your own already.
I still remember my first DS1 playthrough, when Solaire, Mildred and Tarkus turned bosses I just couldn't handle on my own into cakewalks. In DS3 all the NPC phantoms get routinely squashed and leave me with a powered-up boss who has barely lost any health.
I had a different experience...
On my first play through, I did all the bosses solo, and obviously struggled on a fair few of them. On my second, I wanted to do some of the NPC quest lines, and not knowing which quests were tied to which summons, I summoned NPCs as often as possible.
NPC summons made most of the bosses incredibly easy. Siegward easily tanked Yhorm while I just charged the special move repeatedly. Abyss Watchers were a joke, as was the Old Demon King. Gundyr II fell over with barely a fight...
I found that the NPC summons were very effective at holding boss aggro, and healing themselves when they needed to. I don't think I had one die throughout the whole playthrough.
Siegward was the only one that got squashed quickly. I might look for the agro ring and try it on to finish Anri's
Edit. Oh! Ludleth has the Skull ring. Sorry dude, I need that, you'll get better.
Can someone explain to me how the demon in the Undead Settlement looks so much like a Taurus Demon?
in four out of five Let's Plays I've seen people said it looks like that. Am I the only one who doesn't think so at all?
Lorewise the Taurus demons cam from the Chaos flame and so this thing probably is connected to it.
Got ring from Ludleth and he had nightmares about burning in the First Flame. I guess I'll level up to 50 or so before trying Yhorm and Aldrich.
Anyone up for Yhorm hunting at about 9pm EST? Level 48(not over 50) name is granolaeater.
I'm on journey 3.
Yhorm down. Bit odd to not see any summoning symbols or get invaded in Profaned Capitol
SL 48 is also on the low side for that area. I'd guess that most people are 65+, putting them outside his summoning range.
So I should use the soul boosters and stab stuff in Boreal valley then?
All up to you. If you're downing content, you don't have to farm levels. The only time that SL is really important is if you want to PVP and do fight clubs, for that you want to be about 120 +/- 10. I'm level 178 though and still finding people to summon/be summoned, but sometimes if it's off-peak or not a popular spot, I don't find anyone.
Tip to everyone, pretty much everyone is onto the bridge in the catacombs so trying for bridge kills rarely works. Best to fight with the critters
Hmm. I am not sure what is happening but this has happened often enough that I suspect that something is going on.
At times when I start playing, I can do co-op, invasions and see summon signs in the appropriate areas. However, after a while I am simply unable to find any places where I can invade(Searching for world just keeps flashing) I don't get summoned for Darkmoon/Wolves/Sentinels or for co-op. I don't know what is up, if there is some limit going on. I can see bloodstains,phantoms and messages.