Dark Souls 3 {Dark souls 2 successor [Dark Souls successor (Demon's Souls successor)]} (Bloodborne's something)

[Mawd]

Pre-ordered. I don't do that very much at all but man am I keen for this game. I have a bunch of hand ins due around the first few days so sadly I can't let the abyss envelop me as thoroughly as I'd like but still..

[Trip Hazard]

That's a risky stratagem, Mawd...

This has been getting some rave reviews, hey? I just hope it can challenge me more than DS2 did, but I think I might be just too familiar with the combat by now. I have such fond memories of those first, faltering steps when I played Dark Souls - can't get those days back. Need to ignore any feelings of nostalgia going into this, and examine it objectively

[osmosisch]

  On 4/7/2016 at 8:51 AM, Trip Hazard said:

 I just hope it can challenge me more than DS2 did

Extremely unlikely. The skills these games teach are transferable.

[Roderick]

That's what I think too. You can only live those precious first 20-30 hours of Dark Souls once, and then they're lost like Kevin Spacey blowing wind from his fingers.

[Bjorn]

Bloodbourne is probably the closest we're going to get to that, where the mechanics change was enough to make it feel really fresh again. 

[Bjorn]

Oooo, PC unlock times have been confirmed, but I haven't seen word on pre-load yet.

 

Monday April 11th at 3:00 PM PDT (UTC -7)
Monday April 11th at 5:00 PM CDT (UTC -5)
Monday April 11th at 6:00 PM EDT (UTC -4)
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Tuesday April 12th at 12:00 AM CEST (UTC +2)
Tuesday April 12th at 7:00 AM JST (UTC +9)

[Bjorn]

Pre-load is live, ~17GB download. 

[Bjorn]

There's apparently going to be a Dark Souls themed board game at some point. 

[Yasawas]

About six hours into the PS4 version now, it's a lot of fun with the unfortunate caveat of a pretty rough framerate even on the latest patch and I'm not usually the kind to be too bothered by that. It's probably not worse than the PS3 games were at the time but it's a shame nonetheless as some of the locations I've seen even at this stage are very pretty indeed, in a grotesquely ugly way obviously, and it jars when I'm panning the camera around to take screenshots.

 

Also I keep playing it like Bloodborne and getting hyper-aggressive once I get hit in a misguided attempt to regain lost health. That does not work at all.

[Apelsin]

  On 4/10/2016 at 4:58 PM, Bjorn said:

There's apparently going to be a Dark Souls themed board game at some point. 

 

Interesting. I've been thinking of of how to make a boardgame in the same vein, based quite heavily on Dragonquest. 

[Gwardinen]

I'm actually going to be a playtester for that board game. Hopefully it won't be too gruelling.

[Gwardinen]

Also, who is getting DS3 for the PC? I have a tendency to enjoy jumping in these games with others.

[Gormongous]

  On 4/11/2016 at 8:16 PM, Gwardinen said:

Also, who is getting DS3 for the PC? I have a tendency to enjoy jumping in these games with others.

 

I have been struggling whether or not to buy this game for almost a month now. I've made a promise that I won't buy it until I've beaten the main campaign of Rebel Galaxy and gotten my first blue item in Vermintide, but that's a weak resolve there...

[Bjorn]

Pre-ordered, pre-loaded on Steam, just waiting for it to unlock. 

 

 

My general approach for the Souls games has been to attempt to solo my first attempt, with sometimes helping other people out once I've figured out how to solo a boss myself (particularly if there are faction rewards like DS2 had).  So I don't expect to do a ton of co-oping for a little bit, unless it's an area I've already cleared.

[Dewar]

  On 4/10/2016 at 5:41 PM, Yasawas said:

About six hours into the PS4 version now, it's a lot of fun with the unfortunate caveat of a pretty rough framerate even on the latest patch and I'm not usually the kind to be too bothered by that. It's probably not worse than the PS3 games were at the time but it's a shame nonetheless as some of the locations I've seen even at this stage are very pretty indeed, in a grotesquely ugly way obviously, and it jars when I'm panning the camera around to take screenshots.

 

Also I keep playing it like Bloodborne and getting hyper-aggressive once I get hit in a misguided attempt to regain lost health. That does not work at all.

 

It does encourage being a little bit more aggressive than DS2 though. If you sit back and wait for things to come to you, the enemies have some pretty mean long distance attacks, or you can be easily overwhelmed.

 

I'm enjoying it so far. I understand the complaints of linearity, but even though there's really only been one zone to be in (at least so far) each zone has a maze-like quality that I really love.

[Bjorn]

I feel like I can be quite a bit more aggressive in this so far vs DS1 and to a lesser degree DS2 (I got pretty aggressive in it after my initial playthrough). 

 

 

This sure is a Dark Souls game.  Which isn't a complaint, it's exactly what I was expecting and wanting so far.  My only real complaint is that I've found multiple Dex weapons within the first few hours, and no Str weapons.  I don't really want to invest my limited titanite right now in my starter weapon, but I might have to .

[Yasawas]

  On 4/12/2016 at 6:50 AM, Dewar said:

It does encourage being a little bit more aggressive than DS2 though. If you sit back and wait for things to come to you, the enemies have some pretty mean long distance attacks, or you can be easily overwhelmed.

 

Aye, I'm finding that now. I'm also pleased to see they've addressed one of the complaints I had with DSII (I loved DSII) in that virtually every enemy in that game attacked in a pattern of three swings before pausing. I sometimes forget this still and go for it and get beasted in the face. Also also, in 12 hours I think I've been parried more in PVE than in my preceding five years of Souls games total.

 

Did a bit of co-op last night as it was the first time the servers had been up and it was smooth and fun, tried it again this morning and I got summoned OK but it wouldn't let me or the other helper through the fog door. After about 30 seconds I was dumped out with several thousands unearned souls in my back pocket. Cheers!

[osmosisch]

  On 4/11/2016 at 8:16 PM, Gwardinen said:

Also, who is getting DS3 for the PC? I have a tendency to enjoy jumping in these games with others.

Yo.

 

I'm like Bjorn though, blind as possible, I didn't even watch the trailers. Death count from last night's hour I could play before really needing to sleep is close to 10, first boss really was not friendly to me.

[Mawd]

I started playing at the same time as another mate and we chatted about the opening on Discord. This game is soo good. I can't wait to do some cheesy pvp later. I like that some of the starting classes allow you to go hybrid a lot earlier than before so I'm thinking an assassin with a bit of sorcery thrown in would be a lot of fun around the low lying areas.

[marginalgloss]

I've had this since Saturday on PS4, due to the happy vagaries of pre-order dispatch dates in the UK.

 

It's very good. It's quite hard. It's Dark Souls! I haven't much more to add beyond that yet. I'm only a little way past the second boss.

 

  Quote

Did a bit of co-op last night as it was the first time the servers had been up and it was smooth and fun, tried it again this morning and I got summoned OK but it wouldn't let me or the other helper through the fog door. After about 30 seconds I was dumped out with several thousands unearned souls in my back pocket. Cheers!

 

I had this exact problem yesterday - got summoned along with one other person into a world where we trounced everything, including a couple of invaders, only to be suddenly disconnected a few moments after the host traversed the fog door. Looks like it might be a consistent problem.

 

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My only real complaint is that I've found multiple Dex weapons within the first few hours, and no Str weapons.

 

I've picked up a few decent Strength-scaling weapons dropped from some of the enemies in the starting areas, so you could farm them if you felt like it. It feels like enemy drops in this game are slightly more attuned to what they are actually carrying, perhaps more so than in the previous game. In fact I feel like I've been getting loads of good drops, even though my Luck is only at 8. No doubt that'll change later on.

 

A tiny not-really-a-spoiler hint on the same subject:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I also found one really good STR weapon in the world, before the second boss. But I think I should keep that one a secret for now. You'll know it when you find it.   

[xchen]

I'm still playing DSII for the first time an not sure if I want to go straight into this next, or Bloodborne first.

 

After initially hating these games when trying Bloodborne the first time I couldn't be happier to say I was wrong. DSII has become one of my all time favorites.

[Dewar]

Bloodborne is a lot different of a game. I'd go straight to three personally, but I don't have a PS4 so I had to anyway

[melmer]

Played an hour and a half... I miss bloodborne I've heard this gets better, so I'll look forward to that. It's so goddamn samey :/

[marginalgloss]

Here is a Hot Tip for DS3 players that someone mentioned on twitter, and which I would never have noticed otherwise: go into the Settings menu and switch the HUD setting to 'Auto'. 

 

It's a new feature which automatically fades out all the HUD elements when nothing's going on. It all comes back when you hold L1 to raise your shield, then it drops away again. I think it looks and works really well, at least for casual mooching through the world.

[N1njaSquirrel]

So I've not played much of this, only just getting past the first boss and then some, but I find the new humanity system quite interesting.

 

Apologies up front for not using correct DaS3 terminology.

 

When you turn human, you get a boosted health bar, among presumably other online stuff. From a design view, this is rewarding the player for taking the step and braving online, instead of previous games, where it's penalizing you for being hollow. I think this is a subtle but interesting change in mechanics and player's thought process, as it makes players use it to help them finish off that difficult boss, instead of being forced to turn human because their health bar is too low. Also, it's the same thing as Demon's souls, but without the constant reminder of your hollowing every time you look at your health bar. I'd be interested to know if it increases the amount of online play and coop.