As much of this game as I've finished I think it's safe to say I'm experienced...

As much of this game as I've finished I think it's safe to say I'm experienced, so I think I can talk about the good and bad things about this thing. And I know I've been a little bitch about it and whined and asked for handholding more than I should have but that's the part of most people's experience. We go through the noob phase then we work our way to veteran.

>The Good
-Medieval fantasy is always cool.
-Armor all appearing on you and letting you be fashionable is awesome.
-Putting together the lore yourself is neat.
-Some of the fights and combat are really fun, satisfying, and exciting.
-You can tell the game has a lot of work put into it.
-The game doesn't baby you.

>The Bad
-There's no story and the characters are forgettable. I still don't remember anyone's name even. And most of them talk in riddles.
-Most of the real challenges are cheap and built around learning to deal with bullshit.
-The game doesn't explain anything to you, even small functional stuff that should be explained.
-Poison, toxic and curse are unavoidable if you don't know they're there and you aren't given a way to cure them for a long time after.
-A lot of areas have terrible lag even offline and many areas are way too dark, but you don't get a torch or anything to fix that. The last one I did was really bad about this stuff.
-Invasion is a stupid mechanic that shouldn't exist.
-The game is really, really ugly even for PS3. Like embarassing bad.
-You get a bunch of paths all the time but only one of them is ever fair and the rest are just meant for experts and high level characters so it's really just an illusion of choice. If you can't handle them it's just one path, if you can take them on the easy path is a joke and ruined.
-Leveling and upgrading takes too long and the stats are unbalanced. Resistance, intelligence, and faith don't seem to do anything and endurance is way too strong. Vitality is also really pointless because every level up increases HP anyway. And if your HP gets too high it starts making estus bad because it doesn't even heal half anymore.

>The Bad continued
-The game needs some kind of a difficulty setting. I know Souls fanboys cream themselves over it being "uber hard" so you can call them "Normal Mode" and the current one "Super Expert Badass Mode" or something. Too many people just won't play this because it doesn't tell you anything and it's too hard to be fun at first.
-Most weapons just suck and aren't good for anything. Once you get a big axe or the halberd there's no point in even picking new ones up.
-You spend most of the game as a zombie, so character creation is pointless.
-Most bosses suck because they are either unfair and cheap or they're built around a gimmick that ruins them once you figure it out. Just get behind it and spank it, just climb a tower and drop on it, kill the doggies so the boss becomes a joke. Otherwise it's just "fight two bosses at once!" or "lava everywhere, then random explosion with no warning that just kills you instantly." I only say most and not all because there's probably at least one boss I didn't fight that is an exception.
-Invasion is a terrible mechanic.

>as much of this game as I've finished
>I'm experienced
>implying you even finished the easiest and shortest out of the 3
Shiggy diggy doo

>out of the 3
Out of the three what?

not your blog

It's not a blog post it's a review meant for discussion.

You have a few decent points in the bad, but a lot of it is nit picky, or just terrible

How can an opinion be terrible?

When you say some dumb shit like invasions are stupid and shouldnt exist

They are stupid and I don't think they should exist. They just encourage another player to unwantedly step into someone's game and ruin their progress and fun. It's like encouraging a child to push other kids and take their toys.

Here's a (you), a 2/10 and a Git Gud. Use them well.

unsubscribe

Uuuuuh don't go arounf in human form?
Or pull the plug if you're that much of a bitch

Bait/10

So much wrong about your post I don't even.

But I have to be human every time I kindle. So I just have to accept a death no matter what which is stupid.

>no matter what

It isn't death no matter what unless you're so bad you can't beat invasions.

The best way to avoid invasions is to get gud and don't level too much. Vitality is a babby stat and you shouldn't put any points in it untill you've hit the cap in your main damage stat if at all. By being underleveled as hell you'll avoid 99% of the invasions.

You just revealed you didn't even read my original posts. I even said vitality is pointless and that's one of the problems with the stat system.

But even if I win an invasion there'll be another one, then another one, until I die. Nobody is just undefeated. So yeah, it's a death no matter what that shouldn't happen.

>There's no story

If you didn't intend this as bait, then you should be embarrassed.

I did. From it I concluded you put point in vitality.

You said it's pointless for the dumbest reason though. Having your estus not heal you for full is a retarded reason why vitality isn't a good stat. Vitality still gives you more health then you'd have otherwise. If that is more then estus can heal it still means you can take more hits then someone with base vitality.

Unless you actually wait around for invasions at the optimal level they hardly ever happen to me. Only reason I can think of is that you've levelled yourself into normie territory.

I'm level 73 as of the last time I played.

I only leveled it twice so I know that vitality is stupid for that reason because it's pointless. Most attacks will kill you at base HP in like two or three hits, so you'd have to get hit multiple times to die from full health to start with. So beyond that is pointless because your estus still only heals the same amount. If you had like 1000 HP and each attack does 400 damage to you, it doesn't matter if you had 1200 HP because you still die in three hits and the estus wont make any difference so that extra 200 doesn't do anything but sit there. You get enough just by leveling normally.

>level 73

And you haven't even completed the game yet?

What the fuck kind of retard build are you are even running?

Also your argument that vitality is useless is still bad. Like I said I never level it but if you're a normie you should. If you have 1000 health and a boss does 1000 damage you'll die in one shot. If you have 1200 and the boss does 1000 you live allowing you to drink an estus, or even two, between dodges to get back up to full health again.

Dark souls games, you dolt.

- disagree. every character is unique and seems to have an interesting backstory. and as a bonus, practically everyone is a merchant.
- the real challenge is learning which weapons to use and for what. bullshit mechanics are few and far between, the vast majority of the game requires mainly foresight and combat skill.
- the controls are covered in the tutorial, every item has a concise description.
- the remedy for poison and toxic can be acquired in large quantities directly after beating the first major boss gargoyles. in fact if i remember correctly that particular enemy has the highest drop rate in the game.
- that isn't lag, that's your frame rate dipping. it happens when the game has to load massive areas like blighttown. it's annoying at first but you'll get used to it.
- disagree, it takes a long time to learn how to deal with them but some of your most fun battles will be invasions.
- simply disagree
- there's only one "path", and it's through the undead burg. everything else was "intended" to be done after that, but if you EXPLORE, and learn the shortcuts in each high level area, you can try to go to places earlier in new playthroughs.
- leveling and upgrading only take too long when you're not used to the game. later in the game upgrading will seem to come too quickly, and you'll wonder if your weapons are actually overpowered. you have some balls calling yourself a veteran if you don't know this. leveling up doesn't increase HP by the way it increases your damage resistances, very slightly.

Like I said I got far enough to be considered experienced and know my opinions of the game.

What are the odds of a boss doing exactly the amount of health you have but not enough to kill you if you have just a little bit more?

Vitality is also stupid because since estus sucks after you level it then you have to use more estus to get full so you run out of it faster. So who cares if you can take four hits now instead of three if you run out of estus early? I'd rather have low hp and always fill it so I can put points into other stats and make my estus last longer.

Embarrassing, I hope you didn't put a lot of effort into this.

so basically you're bad

When I level up my HP goes up. That's increasing HP.

There are multiple paths and I've had many experienced players tell me this is one of the best things about the game, that it isn't linear. But it is linear because of the illusion of choice.

Frame rate dropping and lag are the same thing.

If you mean the bush enemies because they drop a lot of moss that's just stupid game design. The forest ends in a dead end and it's all optional so it'd be easy to miss it, and requiring the player to go to an optional area and get random not guaranteed drops to cure unavoidable statuses is stupid, especially since there is no way to know when those statuses will happen or how much of it there'll be so you don't even know to farm them.

Like I said most of the weapons are useless so that happens early. You get the halberd like really early on, before the gargoyles which you even say is the first real boss, and that's basically all you'll ever need to use because it does way more damage than most other things but also reaches really far.

Not all the controls are covered in the tutorial and their uses aren't covered at all. I still don't know why parrying is useful and it doesn't tell you anything about kicking or how a kick that looks like it should be useless is apparently like a fucking horse when you kick a shield. How can I kick a shield away that actual big metal weapons cant knock away? That's just stupid but it's like a huge mechanic and the only weakness of certain enemies.

The game doesn't require foresight and skill. It requires memory and dying over and over. You die so you learn what you did wrong, then you die again, and again, until you remember everything and do it the one way the developers wanted you to do it even if sometimes that doesn't even make sense. Like the kicking thing.

>Frame rate dropping and lag are the same thing.
no it's not, you dyke

Lazy Ass Game. Lag. It's whenever a game slows down, doesn't matter why.

>But I have to be human every time I kindle. So I just have to accept a death no matter
This is risk vs reward. Its intentional and brilliant. Its not the game devs fault you're terrible.

dank

It's not risk vs reward if you have to do it, and if once you do it the punishment is just guaranteed. A risk is something that MIGHT happen because something you didn't have to do but did do. A reward is a prize for doing something you didn't have to do but did well.

Having to kindle then being damned to invasions until you die isn't risk reward, it's just bad design.

You do not have to go human at any point to beat the game. Stop blaming the game for being bad. If you wanna risk going human to get more flasks/others to help you then you also have to accept that people will invade you.

Why does built in bullying even have to be a thing? Invasion just encourages bullying other players and ruining their fun.

yeah that's because you're leveling vitality, you dolt.

well they should have told you that you can't just go anywhere right from the start unless you're incredibly skilled. you have to learn the shortcuts so you can avoid enemies, pick up the valuable items and run straight to the boss.

it's not your connection creating the "lag" though, just thought you should know.

it's not easy to miss an area with a big door right next to the blacksmith. that was the intended path after beating gargoyles, considering that titanite demon has the lowest HP out of any other.

the halberd is reliable but it's no powerhouse, and it swings a little too slow for the harder bosses. good weapon for normal enemies, but you're going to want an ultra greatsword for late bosses if you're leveling strength.

parrying is useful because it allows you to riposte which causes massive critical damage just like the backstab. only a riposte is usually easier to get than a backstab because the AI in this game is good at countering strafing. kicking works against enemies with low poise, and it makes sense to me because you can get significantly more leverage with your legs when you push something. it's really not that good though, i don't know of any enemies where it is their only weakness.

learning isn't going to help you if you don't sharpen your skills. you soon should realize that you can't cheese every enemy, you're going to need to dodge, set up your attacks, and be very mindful of enemies you can't see. or, be willing to take the movement penalties that come with a greatshield.

Wow you're dumb. I already said I only leveled vitality twice ever and it was very early on. But every level up you still get some HP no matter what.

Lag is any kind of slow down, not just specifically connection based.

But it's just a dead end so it's obviously not required to go there. I didn't even find the blacksmith until way after I guess I was meant to.

Like I said originally. Once you get the halberd and a big axe you're set. The bull demon gives you a huge fucking axe that is all you need once you can use it. I've used it since getting 31 strength and have never needed a different weapon for anything.

What do you mean riposte?

What the fuck is this terrible thread and why Sup Forumstard aren't sageing this shit to oblivion?

I'm guessing you'd prefer a Souls drone thread where nobody is allowed to have a real opinion and everyone takes turns sucking Dark Souls' dick? People can have opinions.

That's true, but this is OP's bait thread. It's not real opinion.

pay closer attention the next time you level up because lots of different stats are highlighted. every single one of your defenses will increase by 1 point when you level up (to a certain extent, eventually this will stop happening).

whatever.

it is required to go there. that big purple door with the shiny thing in the middle? there's something behind it that's very important. also for some people, the divine ember will be a requirement, if they struggle with the catacombs. you have to beat moonlight butterfly to get it.

yes sometimes you luck into a good drop, i'm sure it happened to most people their first time. anything with A or B scaling is a keeper. but those big strength weapons are going to be tough to use against enemies and bosses who can outpace your recovery time. and they're not great for pvp.

riposte is when you parry someone and then press R1 while pushing the analog towards them. you'll stab them through the gut and cause insane damage, the same amount you would have caused with a backstab. i assume you know what backstabs are, veteran.

>Wow you're dumb. I already said I only leveled vitality twice ever and it was very early on. But every level up you still get some HP no matter what.

No you don't you fucking moron

Even on Sup Forums there's a limit you can't just cross in term of shitty braindead "opinion".

I'd like to have a dark souls discussion thread where, people that criticize half the points OP made, actually beat the game

Fuck I actually have to get through that door? I killed the butterfly though. Seemed pointless what do embers even do?

I still don't really get how important scaling is. Like yeah the higher the letter the more damage it gets from that stat but like is it better to have a high damage weapon with bad scaling or a low damage weapon with high scaling?

That's what they're for? I thought they just opened them up for like one quick attack or to get away but I never tried actually pushing towards them and attacking.

Protip to fuck dark sole in the ass: Take off your armor and roll like a mad man through everything the game throw at you, faggot.

I do fast roll, moron.

Yes, you need to go through the door. Make sure you're in human form when you do though. Embers can be given to blacksmiths to unlock different upgrade paths.

Scaling is important, or not. You can easily do NG with a lightning, fire or chaos weapon which has no stat scaling at all. You'll get better damage in the long run with a +15 weapon though. Weapons with high base damage tend to have high scaling as well, but slower attacks to compensate.

You don't need to press forward on the stick to riposte, just make sure you R1 as soon as you hear that parry sound. It actually does more damage than a backstab. Ripostes make later enemies easier, particularly things like Silver Knights which have poise.

I, for one, enjoy it when another player pops in. It breaks up the normal pace of a section. It can literally be anything. In some cases, it's an unbeatable asshole griefer which can be annoying, but one death is nothing. Seriously, the game only punishes recklessness. If you are bitching, it's most likely your own fault.

there's another way, but you should go through the door because it's more fun. embers allow you to craft enchanted weapons, divine ember crafts faith based weapons.

weapons with A and B scaling you'll want to keep for NG+. so long as you're doing at least 200 damage on bosses you should be fine if you can dodge.

yes and the small shields like the buckler give you an extra half a second or so for timing the parry.

I've been trying to decide between two axes I have but was never sure. I've already sort of dedicated to my demon axe and got use to it so I don't think I'll switch, but the other one seems a lot stronger and doesn't take much more strength. But it doesn't have any scaling at all and the demon axe has really good scaling. Someone told me in another thread my demon one will be better than the dragon one, but I don't know when.

Are upgrade paths important or can I ignore that?

I'm really bad at parrying so I don't think I'll mess with it, especially since I can't do it with my axe.

My dad likes when my mom steps on his balls but it doesn't mean it's good or everyone should have to experience it. Some people are just masochists.

It's not really "fast" if it's on PS3 with cataclysmic framerate

Demon's Greataxe is better. Just upgrade it normally.

I might hop back on for some invasions, seeing as people still get salty over them.

if you're just looking for raw damage you don't need to bother with other upgrade paths but they certainly add some flavor and replayability. and of course a divine upgrade gives you a serious advantage in the catacombs. however, fire is really good against many bosses and lightning is really good against many normal enemies.

So should I just keep my demon axe like it is or should I go with a different upgrade path? Fire sounds cool. I haven't been to the catacombs yet so I don't know anything about it.

normal path for demon axe. the falchion, or any straight sword make good fire weapons.

...

This game sucks, controls are too choppy and unresponsive.

> earth is flat!
is an opinion
and it's fucking retarded

>Please hold my hand : The review
My god you would probably start bawling like an infant if you had to beat Castlevania 2 without a guide

>Rolls the completely wrong way for dodging that attack or any attack at all.

No you didn't. You haven't even got the lordvessel, it's so fucking obvious

Dude I've put like 40 hours into this game.

And you still haven't beaten it, how fucking awful can you be at vidya.

OP, you forgot to mention:

>no black representation, imagine if five niggers went to an inn in lordran and they made a girl next day pregnant
>not many cinematics to explain the story better
>why doesn't the protag talk?
>no mention of politics, the best part of a video game

A game being more inclusive doesn't make it a better game.

>Medieval fights
>fucking ROLL

I hate Dark Souls and everyone who likes it

The Dark Souls series is basically everything FROM software have been aching for over the last 20 years of making games. A cheaply-made, buggy and really not very good series that gains a cult following that'll excuse all its mistakes, and cover for its failings.

If you want an example of a mediocre game made bulletproof by zealous fans, look no further than the souls series

>friend of mine recommends Dark Souls
>tells me it's an awesome, medieval fantasy game that has realistic, slow and methodical combat
>awesome, thinks I, and gets it
>he sets up a mod or some shit that lets us play together
>I start a character as a knight, sword and board, hard armour, gonna have an awesome time
>I meet his character, it's a naked woman, and he keeps fucking rolling around with a claymore in his hand
>"What are you doing with a shield, bro? Don't you know they engender passivity?!"
>think he's just being an asshole
>keep playing
>see hundreds of people naked, just rolling around
>ask about builds on the internet
>"Why you using shields, bro? Don't you know they engender passivity?!"

What's going on?

Anyone who thinks it's realistic is a fucking retard. It's good, but not realistic in any way

What kind of a brainlet do you have to be to think INT is useless?

Nice meme

OP, if you want actual help then go and read the wiki, stop asking Sup Forums for pointer. i remember you make like 3 thread for this.

>No story
Can you please kys

He's right though. It has LORE ie. backstory, but the story is just "ring these bells because a dying man says so, kill these guys because snakes say so"

>shields engender passivity

I keep seeing this everywhere too, these exact words, and i'm not sure how it became a maymay

Dark Souls is not even hard, unless you consider bad design being a difficult level.

The game does not give you enough information before a possible death event to know its dangerous, so people think its a difficult game because theres no way to not die unless you already know the levels and all the traps. With a guide the game is cake

THIS. It's a very trashy series,and they obviously never bothered to fix that because the fans would shout down all criticism.

They were right though, so..fuck me for having standards.

Not to mention the horrible gotcha moments throughout the series

>playing your weapon banging off the walls of corridors while enemy weapons clip through and hit you: the movie: the game@ the epistlary audiojournal

Just started a NG_+ of Dark Souls III. What changes in it? After the changes that they made in DS2, I can't wait to see what I find!

It hasn't done shit for me and I leveled it twice. Same with faith. NPCs don't even seem to have new dialogue.

Even I know you just use forward attacks like smashes and stabs in small spaces. How retarded would you have to be to swing a weapon in those spots? Duh.

>intelligence, and faith don't seem to do anything
???????
This is like complaining strength doesn't do anything when you level it and then only use dex weapons.

go offline if you have that much of an issue with it. simple fix.

>Haha this safari sucks because every minute a lion or a other animal chases me

you're fucking retarded

Ladies and gentlemen, nu/v/

Then how would I be able to summon other people?

The fuck does that even have to do with it?

But then "no story" becomes an empty criticism if you disregard character dialogues that flesh out the world, or item descriptions.
>kill these guys because snakes say so"
Becomes much more sinister than it already is when you encounter Marvelous Chester, when you go into Oolacile, etc.

>being chased by animals
>on safari

I'd be worried, too. You ought to be in a car.

so much of this is just incorrect

I hate you.

Obviously leveling intelligence and faith won't do anything if you're not using spells or intelligence/faith weapons, the same way leveling strength won't do anything if you aren't using strength weapons. You're pretty obviously baiting at this point, so I'm interested to see how you wiggle out of this one.

Yeah, all of the criticsm is laughable as fuck.

Just admit you hate the reddit-tier normie community who overrate this franchise.

That's still lore though. None of the stuff happens while you're playing. I will agree that stuff like Marvelous Chester is storyline, but...that stuff is fw and far between. Stuff like Cieran showing up is nice, because it links story and lore, but that doesn't happen much at all in the main game, and we're left with very rich lore, but a VERY barebones story.

/thread

But that would ruin the fun

Not sure how risk/reward could be more easily demonstrated for you. The risk is becoming human to kindle opens you up to invasions, so more potential deaths and more difficult battles. The reward is obviously the ability to heal more through the use of estus flask. The game wasn’t intentially designed to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, Miyazaki has said this many times. The difficulty is just a result of the world he created, an afterthought. You sound like you’re bad at understanding video game design and that you don’t play enough rpgs, you should really get a blog for this type of shit or make a reddit post.

Nigga Dark Souls is like ten years old.