Dark Souls 3

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Hatorade

A nice asshole.
8,155
6,508
Fume sword is best sword, no one is ready for my rolling stab. I also hit enough endurance to wear I can wear full set of winged armor and grass shield to parry those that rely on the same attack over and over.
 

Nirgon

YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE
12,584
19,318
Tons of improvements with the new patch.

- Seed of giants duration massively nerfed
- Unable to summon chain summon white phantoms after they are killed
- increase pvp level range for invasions/blue soul defenses and invasions otherwise
- lots of weapon tweaks
- equipping a +3 wolf ring for poise seems to make a difference
- Ringed City is very big / visually amazing
- Another battle arena added

I'm diggin it again.
 

ShakyJake

<Donor>
7,599
19,182
I just started playing this (PS4). Are the Dark Souls servers unstable as shit? I keep getting booted out -- error about being disconnected from the server. Fucking annoying.
 

Folanlron

Trakanon Raider
2,213
639
I just started playing this (PS4). Are the Dark Souls servers unstable as shit? I keep getting booted out -- error about being disconnected from the server. Fucking annoying.

I had some issues when it was first released, but haven't had any issues sense
 

Soygen

The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
<Nazi Janitors>
28,312
43,095
I just started playing this (PS4). Are the Dark Souls servers unstable as shit? I keep getting booted out -- error about being disconnected from the server. Fucking annoying.
I play on PC without issues. Do you play other multiplayer stuff on PS4 without issue?
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
So I picked this up on sale, first Souls experience for me. Still, I have a thing for weird RPGs and the likes of Gothic 1&2 taught me control schemes and combat systems few would believe these days.

Couple thoughts:
Xbox gamepad as button prompts in a tutorial on PC ? Really ?! The controls themselves are fine, but this is just laziness from the devs. My only complaint is the rather esoteric inventory management and sometimes the camera gets drunk and starts spinning.

I have been trying to avoid guides and spoilers, but I'd classify the game as borderline unplayable and deliberately obtuse without at least basic guide to explain the mechanics, especially when the game cheerfully kills you at every step. Backtracking and leveling up feels almost essential for a new player, but soul management is never explained properly and those levels make a huge difference. Funnily enough, it took me even longer to understand how to equip items, since I had assumed the way to do it would be through inventory, where the option is present, but grayed out ...

Gameplay-wise, I adore the stamina system, since it gives you resource management where most games have none. It gives every combat decision an appropriate weight. Most of the trash mobs is just piss easy, shame you have to butcher them a million times before you get a chance to get pounded by the latest fatty standing in your way. The first killzone with the dragon is kind of obvious that you should avoid it, but is the random blob of zombies on the roof after the second bonfire that rapes me in 3 seconds killable at the start ? I know the starting zone had something like that, but there was a warning at least. Is it ever viable to just skip the fatties and run for the checkpoints ? The one with the halberd in the courtyard feels like that ...

Is magic even viable ? I picked pyromancer and the fireball is impossible to target and takes ages to use ...
 

Evernothing

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
4,644
8,369
Zaphid Zaphid Yes, you can run past enemies to get to safer areas or checkpoints. You will learn when to do this overtime, usually after you die far into an area and just need to get back to get your souls.

Regarding those hollows, I think you mean on the roof where the guy transforms into the black thing? Yes, it is all killable at that level, you just need to learn when to dodge and when to strike. You definitely want to kill that thing after it tranforms, because the first time it has a guaranteed drop of a weapon upgrade component.
 
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Randin

Trakanon Raider
1,922
872
I'm actually in the middle of doing a sorcerer playthrough, and yes, magic is perfectly viable (mostly*). As Fedor implied, you do have to actually lock on when doing magic--doing it freehand is way too finicky. The only exception to that is casting while using the binoculars; it takes a bit of practice, but it's a great way to snipe enemies outside of lock-on range. Aside from that, magic just comes down to what the rest of the game comes down to: learning enemy movesets--knowing when you're far enough away to get a spell off before they can close with you, knowing when there's a gap in their combo where you can squeeze off a spell, stuff like that.

*There are some bosses that are just straight-up "fuck your magic" in design, so having a decent weapon and shield as backup for those special occasions is smart.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
Lock on made the game about 100% easier, mostly because I can cheese fights with fireballs now. I killed the priestess in the cathedral, have I fucked myself over ? Made it through my first invasion, the guy murdered all 3 of us (joined the blue covenant), I thought I had him, but he was lagging fiercely. KKK midgets are a rather curious choice of an enemy, but very annoying.

No kidding, the exploration and the atmosphere make it an absolute masterpiece, running back after a boss beats you to a pulp less so. Vordt took me like 10-15 tries, but running back was a pain.
 

Big_w_powah

Trakanon Raider
1,887
750
Lock on made the game about 100% easier, mostly because I can cheese fights with fireballs now. I killed the priestess in the cathedral, have I fucked myself over ? Made it through my first invasion, the guy murdered all 3 of us (joined the blue covenant), I thought I had him, but he was lagging fiercely. KKK midgets are a rather curious choice of an enemy, but very annoying.

No kidding, the exploration and the atmosphere make it an absolute masterpiece, running back after a boss beats you to a pulp less so. Vordt took me like 10-15 tries, but running back was a pain.

I don't think theres a single school of magic that isn't fucked over completely by one boss or another. ALWAYS have melee as an option.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
I don't think theres a single school of magic that isn't fucked over completely by one boss or another. ALWAYS have melee as an option.
Yeah, I'm running around with my trusty +3 fire longsword, some 100% physical shield and the bigger fireball. Makes most trash trivial, but Abyss Watchers laughed at me, so I went to Cathedral of the Deep instead. The fat knights up in the rafters weren't even worth killing, but now I'm stuck on the few knights that come after I cleared out both of the giants in there. Either my dodging skills suck or I should learn how to parry. I always feel like I start rolling waaaaay too early and then I get greeted by a bitchslap.
 

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
9,071
9,100
I started playing this yesterday, myself. Also new to the DS series and it was gifted to me by a friend so its on my PS4. A lot of the stuff was explained in the early area by the red marks on the ground. Some of which I could see being missed easily. Things like locking onto targets, parrying, equipping items etc.

I refuse to look up spoilers for the bosses myself as well. But yes, I do agree that some parts of the character management system could really use more explanation. With that said, that is the stuff that Ive been looking up. One of the first things I looked up was what one of the boss shards was for. It didnt seem logical to give me thousands of souls and then a shard for 2 or 3k. Finding out that they give you gear from a guy that you can easily miss in shrine was a nice surprise though. Another thing is after upgrading weapons, there doesnt appear to be a way to tell if a new weapon is going to end up being better after upgrading it than the old one. Am I missing something?

Overall a great game. A challenge that I havent had in quite a while. Most games that are difficult, Im struggling with the UI or controls. But they feel solid on the PS4 so anytime I mess up, I know that its because I didnt think it through properly. The story bleeds through a little bit, but its probably one of my only complaints about the game. I really have no idea why Im killing the lords. Or why Im dead or "unkindled" etc. etc.

** Oh, and the Fire Gem is garbage. It removes base scaling and attribute scaling for only fire damage. The Dark Gem hes talking about gets rid of base scaling, adds dark damage in its place, switches primary stats from str and dex to int and faith scaling. Very nice gem for your playstyle.
 
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