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[Schoq]

waiting for souls kart racers

[Manuel Magalhães]

dark souls: a telltale games series

[gimymblert]

Gwyndolin will remember that

[jamesprimate]

have any of you guys successfully done a no death run in any of the souls games? after rain world finishes up i have this odd compulsion to try to work my way up to doing a no death stream.

playing through a casual run now with a new build and def feel like its possible but i fuck it up in random moments. for instance, after puttering around doing sequence break stuff early game i wound up going through the first 8 or so bosses without dying, all through blight town, catacombs, tomb of giants, etc and nothing can touch me, im feeling super confident. but then i go back to level a fire weapon with Vamos and die like 10x from goddamn wheel skeletons 

[s0]

have any of you guys successfully done a no death run in any of the souls games?

nope. i've tried but im not good enough to do everything consistently well. i tried a no bonfire run in dks2 once but it was too tedious so i stopped. demon's souls is probably the game i could see myself doing it the most, mainly because easy bosses and some broken builds not present in later souls games.

actually a "no death" run would probably be trivial using a faith build with the second chance miracle, so i wouldn't go for that lol.

for instance, after puttering around doing sequence break stuff early game i wound up going through the first 8 or so bosses without dying, all through blight town, catacombs, tomb of giants, etc and nothing can touch me, im feeling super confident. but then i go back to level a fire weapon with Vamos and die like 10x from goddamn wheel skeletons

yep that's pretty much me in souls games lol. my biggest shame is that i still sometimes die to the iron golem (due to rolling off the platform).

[FrankieSmileShow]

When it comes to souls runs I'm more interested in specific builds. Like a bow build, or one with a specific weapon I never really used before, or set of spells. No-death runs raises the stakes but doesn't really change how you play, just makes you more careful overall, or makes you rely on easier or more reliable tactics. That's fun in its own right but it doesn't really change things up as much. I'm always on a no-death run until the first time I die!

[DJFloppyFish]

no death in dark souls just isn't for me. i tried doing it multiple times in dks2 but after dying in earthen peak by walking off a ledge due to my lock-on glitching out, i lost interest.

now, soul level 1 in dks1? that's a worthwhile challenge. its a fun way to make you feel like a souls newb again, and damn rewarding. some parts aren't really any worse than usual, others are uncharacteristically intense. like the gwyn fight for instance, soul level 1 makes that fight way more scary. 

[s0]

The only thing that worries me about SL1 run is bosses taking forever due to low damage output. I hate drawn out boss fights and it's my #1 complaint about bloodborne's otherwise excellent boss design (later chalice bosses in particular)

[s0]

one thing i like about demons souls' progression with the hub and "themed" worlds is that you can get good gear for every build early. for instance, in bloodborne if youre an arcane build, you have to play through like a third of the game before you get any good arcane shit.

in demon's souls if you're a faith build you go to 5-1 and get the blessed mace, if youre an int build you go to 4-1 and get the crescent falchion etc. etc.

there's also much more planning involved in the progression than in the later games thanks to the hub setup and world tendency. i know a lot of people dislike the nexus, but i would actually like to see from repeat this format in a future souls game. dks2 is kind of a shitty compromise between demon's and dks1 progression that doesn't play to the strengths of either (tho sotfs improves it somewhat). another neat side effect is that the distance models in e.g. boletaria palace feel more "to scale" than anything in the later games, because it's obviously easier to design this kinda thing for multiple smaller self-contained worlds rather than 1 big one. not that dks1 is bad in this regard, mind you. quite the opposite.

also i still wanna see world tendency done right. bonfire ascetics in dks2 were ok, but they were kind of an MMOish grinding mechanic you mainly used to farm items. insight in bborne was a good idea but they kinda didn't do enough with it. especially disappointing that there are no insight effects in the dlc (that i know of). i want something that unlocks new npcs, side areas and enemies and stuff like that.

[Tanner]

hello, it seems i haven't learned my lesson and have purchased bloodborne. i would say i'm clicking with it more than the few times i tried dks, but wow there's a lot to take in. how easy is it to totally screw myself over character-wise here? any not super-prescriptive tips?

[s0]

it's hard to screw yourself over completely because thanks to the streamlined stat system, every stat is useful. however: i wouldn't go for pure arcane or pure bloodtinge first playthrough. the worst that can happen to you is you upgrade a bad weapon (higher-tier upgrade materials are SCARCE). but otoh there are no outright terrible weapons unless you have the wrong stats for your weapon's damage scaling*

*idk how familiar you are with the souls series damage scaling mechanic, sorry if that sounded patronizing.

[Tanner]

not patronizing at all! i know nothing of damage scaling

[s0]

welp basically

in a normal rpg, there's usually one stat (like strength) that influences weapon damage right?

in the souls series there are 4 of those stats and different weapons' damage output is affected by different stats. you can see this in the equipment screen. it's called "attribute bonus" in bloodborne, but most people call it "damage scaling".

what that means is: one weapon's damage might not be affected by your strength stat at all but instead by your dexterity stat. there are also weapons whose damage scales with multiple stats. that's most weapons in bloodborne other than guns which only scale with the bloodtinge stat.

basically, your 4 damage stats (strength, skill, arcane and bloodtinge in bborne) determine what sort of weapons you can use best and therefore determine your character build.

edit: also this is pretty much all you need to know to make informed decisions about your build (unless youre trying to minmax which i wouldn't recommend for a first playthrough).

[Tanner]

thanks, that's super useful! it's really easy for my brain to shut down when i see all of those stats, but that's a really great breakdown. i'll be sure to keep that in mind when i go back to the game later this week.

[s0]

btw, slashy souls isn't even on the appstore in my country. probably for the better, because from what ive seen and read of it i'd say my earlier assessment is correct.

if you want a good endless runner/ beat em up mix for mobile, just play punch quest.

[matwek]

Interesting list of changes for Dark Souls 3...
http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/1/11130964/dark-souls-3-feature-preview-everything-we-know-fp-firelink-shrine-stats-classes
...mot sure how much people already knew?

[s0]

i actually prefer having an npc handle levelups over leveling at bonfires

[Thomas Finch]

I do too as long as they don't repeat the same lines over and over and over and over again every single time you just want to fucking level up.

[jamesprimate]

I do too as long as they don't repeat the same lines over and over and over and over again every single time you just want to fucking level up.

CHOSEN UNDEAD, BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

[FrankieSmileShow]

Noo just make it play over the level up screen instead of having you hammer through it, that was perfect in Demon's Souls.