Hi folks,
I’m having a blast in this game and compared to more recent similar games (pinokeiro puppets lie twice, dark souls 3, elden ring, hellpoint etc) finding it much less difficult, more comparable to dark souls 1 or demons souls. I don’t consider myself hugely skilled at these games, I couldn’t finish ringed city or lies of p for example.
Reading though it seems there’s a rather polarised perception of difficulty. Some people, many claiming to be highly skilled players, are struggling and others like me seem to find it comfortable.
Discussion around these games is very difficult, as whether something is hard becomes a stand in for validity of opinion and moral character in the flame wars.
Beehaw might be the one place we can discuss this and learn what people are doing differently.
Explicit housekeeping: your feelings are real and valid, you cannot be wrong about finding something hard or easy. I don’t want anyone litigating that.
you don’t need to be particularly good at something to have a valid opinion on whether or not you like something either.
So how are people playing and how are they finding it?
I started as a bucket granny. I have been using short swords, I am currently using a fire/physical split damage Rusty cutter or something, most of my stats are in umbral magic which so far is not very good or useful (20/20 stats, 2 spells from dead eyeball man). I am a methodical slow player, drawing things out with range and baiting enemies into areas I have cleared. I am favouring dodge and parries over blocking. I tend to use mostly 2h hits and kicks with soul flaying big guys. I am at medium armour weight.
I have found the game to feel very similar to ds1 as mentioned, or older monster hunter. Slow inputs, deliberate spacing etc. I would say it feels quite approachable so far although ranged sniping has caused problems in a couple of places I have felt it fair aside from that.
How about you?
Been playing these games since DeS on the PS3 when it first came in 2009.
Overall, I’m enjoying it. Multiplayer that doesn’t require consumables and rituals like placing signs or ringing bells is such a QOL improvement. After 14 years of putting down summon signs and ringing bells and gaining insight, I just want to get to it these days. A few thoughts:
- Bosses initially seem challenging until you get a grip on their movesets and then realize you can defeat them with just a few moves. I beat one boss using nothing more than a running R2 attack over and over again.
- Perfect parry windows seem huge.
- A few control decisions and whatnot are bizarre. Someone else mentioned filling the quick items with apparently random items when you deplete another for instance. Most of the time I don’t even equip any other quick use items, just my estus/healing plants/flasks/whatever.
- visuals generally are good on PS5. Am playing in performance mode for the FPS.
- umbral mechanics are pretty neat.
- short cuts and area connections feel good and natural, DS1-like.
- only been invaded once and haven’t tried an invasion yet. Battle went back and forth until my invader went in for the coup de grace and I dodged while they went sailing over the edge of a cliff. They probably would’ve had me had it not been for that cliff.
- dodging feels like a mix of Souls and Bloodborne. Stamina meter might be a bit too forgiving, as it feels like you can dodge over and over through pretty much anything.
- weapons feel like they have weight to them. Movement is a tiny bit floaty but generally the weapon movesets and decent and feel like they have impact
- inexplicable missing sound in some instances. Sliding down ladders for instance happens in dead silence.
- being able to watch the host continue playing while you’re dead is nice. Nothing worse than helping someone almost defeat a boss and then not being able to watch the end result if you happen to bag it near the end.
Anyways, a few thoughts. Hope they continue to support the game with patches for a while to come and fix up a few odds and ends. I’m not all that far into it, but this feels like it has legs.
One thing I haven’t figured out is if perfect parry wither damage is variable.
Sometimes it feels like I take a lot of wither, othertimes not. I’m using a shield and 2hing a lot so I wonder if it’s a shield vs weapon parry thing? Or if it’s timing based like partial parry damage mitigation in ds3.
I was too engrossed to do testing so far, have you tried at all?
What weapons are you using btw? my wife uses a giant axe and seems to yeet herself a lot. Are the certain weapons with lots of lungy movements that might be tripping people up?
I haven’t been 2hing much and haven’t tested much on those sorts of things yet. I did notice that I don’t think you can die on a perfect parry even if you have no health left, though, as I seemed to be in that position during a boss earlier today.
Started with a ranger who starts with an axe, went to a spear, then a halberd, most recently using a hammer. The spear was quite lungy which caused some issues around open air vertical areas with a lot of narrow paths, while the halberd was just too slow. Hammer is feeling good, and has a good set of running attacks.
