Video Game Chat Thread - Pre-Alpha Experimental Version

[EmpGulcasa]

What a quality post. It was so shit they had to destroy a series tradition for diversity hires right? 100% an improved game because now it has 300% more watermelon fans and the final boss is white instead of brown. How could any one possibly not see how great Patches face and animation is?

Lol calm down.

 

[Marissa Moira]

What a quality post. It was so shit they had to destroy a series tradition for diversity hires right? 100% an improved game because now it has 300% more watermelon fans and the final boss is white instead of brown. How could any one possibly not see how great Patches face and animation is?

Actually the remake controls better than the original and they made quite a bit of QoL improvements including removing the need to spend hours farming materials.

 

[9263900263]

Actually the remake controls better than the original and they made quite a bit of QoL improvements including removing the need to spend hours farming materials.

If you had to spend hours farming materials you were doing something seriously wrong from the get go. Dumbing the game down to appeal to dark souls kiddies isn't an improvement.

 

[Marissa Moira]

If you had to spend hours farming materials you were doing something seriously wrong from the get go.

less than .1% drop rate and you have to keep your luck at 7.

You're not getting the material trophy without it. The remake fixes this and at most it will take you 10 minutes.

 

[9263900263]

Trophies aren't relevant to the game. They're baggage if anything. And one of the strengths of demon's souls was people weren't always twinked out with perfect items which is a change Dark souls patched into it when they started charging you for extra content. It's the exact mentality of accessibility which dumbed the series down into the garbage that is bloodborne and Dark souls 3.

 

[Groundbreaking-maize]

If you had to spend hours farming materials you were doing something seriously wrong from the get go. Dumbing the game down to appeal to dark souls kiddies isn't an improvement.

Yeah, if by seriously wrong you mean rolling thief and having grass drops override shard drops, then sure.
GaMe WaS WeLL DEsIgNeD GUyS

 

[Fools Idol]

It's the exact mentality of accessibility which dumbed the series down into the garbage that is bloodborne and Dark souls 3.

How are Bloodborne and DS3 dumbed down? DS3 is virtually identical to DS1. I'd agree that Bloodborne is easier but it's not dumbed down.

 

[9263900263]

How are Bloodborne and DS3 dumbed down? DS3 is virtually identical to DS1. I'd agree that Bloodborne is easier but it's not dumbed down.

It's not even close to identical and it's dumbed down not because of difficulty but because of game design. The amount of actual adventuring and attention to detail required is removed in favour of remarking Arty boss fights over and over again. The world design stagnates and repeats the same exact thing, which isn't interesting when you already went through the same area before but done better. Another swamp which slows your walking speed, another catacombs, another Anor Londo. It stops being an adventure series and becomes a pandering series for fanboys. Because Dark souls 2 was flawed they played it completely safe with dark souls 3 and bloodborne is half a game at best because From just mashed bits from each game together instead of focusing on 1 game at a time. This video explains why the later souls games are dumbed down pretty well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np5PdpsfINA . And bloodborne isn't even playable, it has massive issues with it's frame rates to the point where it says 30 FPS yet stutters between frames so you might get a rush of 5 frames in the space of 1 frame properly timed and then a 4 frame delay which will eat your inputs because it's so poorly coded.

tl;dr they made bad combat games instead of good adventure games.

 

[FuckedUp]

you know i always thought the demon's souls ending was fucking retarded

like it's "nobody's resurrected but at least the five people in in the nexus can rebuild civilization"

like nigger that's not gonna work. i understood that shit the moment i watched that cutscene when i was ten years old

 

[Marissa Moira]

Trophies aren't relevant to the game.

Yes they are all content must be completed, all unique items must be collected. A Perfect save file requires all armor and weapons found including the monk head armor which needs you to be summoned as the boss for the fight and the gargoyle bow which is a rare drop from the maneaters and the lowest weapon drop in the entire game.

Trophies also require learning and using the world and character tendency for specific events. Playing the game with that not in mind locks you out of events because you need to play the game in soul form for 95% of the game. You only return to human from when you need to switch the tendency to black and kill yourself. Character tendency also must be pure white first to get the friendship ring and afterwards you have to wait towards the end of the game to finish the quest to get the foe ring which requires you to kill important NPCs.

 

[Furret]

It's not even close to identical and it's dumbed down not because of difficulty but because of game design. The amount of actual adventuring and attention to detail required is removed in favour of remarking Arty boss fights over and over again. The world design stagnates and repeats the same exact thing, which isn't interesting when you already went through the same area before but done better. Another swamp which slows your walking speed, another catacombs, another Anor Londo. It stops being an adventure series and becomes a pandering series for fanboys. Because Dark souls 2 was flawed they played it completely safe with dark souls 3 and bloodborne is half a game at best because From just mashed bits from each game together instead of focusing on 1 game at a time. This video explains why the later souls games are dumbed down pretty well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np5PdpsfINA . And bloodborne isn't even playable, it has massive issues with it's frame rates to the point where it says 30 FPS yet stutters between frames so you might get a rush of 5 frames in the space of 1 frame properly timed and then a 4 frame delay which will eat your inputs because it's so poorly coded.

tl;dr they made bad combat games instead of good adventure games.

Although I personally prefer the earlier titles, I don't really mind the greater emphasis on action after DS2. The fights feel distinct enough that I don't really get bored even though I'm approaching everything the same way. I also feel that DS3 has enough original ideas to stand on its own without the fanservice, although it does sometimes lean on the earlier games too much for me. That's all subjective, of course, but I want to say it anyway because I strongly disagree with the notion that Souls gets worse with every new installment.

Also, it's been a long time since I last played BB, but I remember it running fine. Not sure what's wrong with your PS4.

 

[9263900263]

Although I personally prefer the earlier titles, I don't really mind the greater emphasis on action after DS2. The fights feel distinct enough that I don't really get bored even though I'm approaching everything the same way. I also feel that DS3 has enough original ideas to stand on its own without the fanservice, although it does sometimes lean on the earlier games too much for me. That's all subjective, of course, but I want to say it anyway because I strongly disagree with the notion that Souls gets worse with every new installment.

Also, it's been a long time since I last played BB, but I remember it running fine. Not sure what's wrong with your PS4.

I don't mind a more action focused game if the game can do something interesting with that action. I got to the Dancer and I was about done with DaS3 because I saw the same boss fight again and again. Even the designs I find interesting aren't interesting to fight when they all act so similar, force you to learn 2 movesets where half of them are just gotchas or add some bullshit secondary element which spoils a good first phase (dragonslayer armour phase 1 is great, the 2nd is just annoying). Sister Fiede is a great example of what I hate about Dark souls 3 and why I consider it a pretty bad game. Stage 1 is slightly annoying but manageable, Stage 2 is a good finale to the DLC with a decent level of challenge. Stage 3 is anime bullshit with so many particle effects it could be a DBZ game. If the bosses are going to be flipping round, shooting fireballs and charging up their power levels then I want a moveset suitable for fighting that. I want to be playing as a DMC character so I can have that kind of fight. If I'm playing Dark souls I want to be fighting mythical beasts like the Sanctuary guardians or weird undead things like Nito. Later souls games lose that core dark fantasy adventure game and that was always the draw for me. Dark souls 2 has similar issues to the Friede boss fight in the DLCs, but I'm willing to forgive that more because despite it's flaws it still tried to send you on an adventure. There are high points and new styles of areas to explore which feel fresh. A castle over a volcano, a town with a dock, not always executed well but you feel some originality and attempts to make it an adventure and explore new ground.

These guys did a proper FPS breakdown of bloodborne. It's not an issue with my PS4, it's an issue with the engine they use for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDIvDPRcPA

 

[Fools Idol]

It's not even close to identical and it's dumbed down not because of difficulty but because of game design. The amount of actual adventuring and attention to detail required is removed in favour of remarking Arty boss fights over and over again. The world design stagnates and repeats the same exact thing, which isn't interesting when you already went through the same area before but done better. Another swamp which slows your walking speed, another catacombs, another Anor Londo. It stops being an adventure series and becomes a pandering series for fanboys.

You do know that your argument is that DS3 is bad because it's too similar to DS1.

Because Dark souls 2 was flawed they played it completely safe with dark souls 3 and bloodborne is half a game at best because From just mashed bits from each game together instead of focusing on 1 game at a time. This video explains why the later souls games are dumbed down pretty well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np5PdpsfINA .

I've seen Matthewmatosis's video before and I even agree with his opinion on the boss and the combat (especially concerning DS2) to a degree but bloodborne isn't half a game, it is it's own thing. Yes it shares a number of similarities too the other souls games, but the meat and potatoes of the game that being the combat encounters play out very differently. I know that Matthewmatosis might disagree with that statement.

And bloodborne isn't even playable, it has massive issues with it's frame rates to the point where it says 30 FPS yet stutters between frames so you might get a rush of 5 frames in the space of 1 frame properly timed and then a 4 frame delay which will eat your inputs because it's so poorly coded.

Frame time issues don't mean the game is dumbed down.

tl;dr they made bad combat games instead of good adventure games.

That's matter of perspective. Are the souls games adventure games? Or are they action games?

 

[9263900263]

My argument isn't that DS3 is bad because it's unoriginal, it's bad because it's uninteresting which is the biggest sin a fantasy game can commit. The slug boss in Eathern peak is not a good boss fight, but it's something you don't see coming and then you get a pretty decent boss fight soon after it. Running into jabba the hutt as a boss when you first enter and try to feel it out is interesting. You never know what you're going to run into and how it's going to act. In 3 that's no longer true. It especially suffers with multiphase fights where you learn the first and then have to learn a second boss at the same place. Once in a while that's fine, but every boss doing it becomes tedious. It becomes a formula and that's not fun.

Bloodborne is clearly half a game when you find multiple bloodborne enemies in Dark souls 3. Farron keep is a bloodborne level with dark souls lore placed in a few places. And it is less deep than even dark souls 1 was combat wise. From have always been lazy and reused assets where possible but 3 is obvious in it's use of Bloodborne content. Including content they charged you for as DLC.

The souls games started as adventure games and turned into combat games. If you need an example of this you only need look at the snow city after the catacombs. Instead of exploring a ghostly city you're immediately chased along a bridge and then enemies start doing huge combos with insane damage out of no where. The game is balanced around being able to chug over and over so any sense of slow exploration is replaced with more anime fights with worse balance because the safety net is now 15 flasks instead of 5.

One thing I want to add that people often miss about Souls games. They're not original and never have been, almost everything memorable in a souls game is stolen from some where else. Miyazaki's style isn't "he leaves homes", it's "he steals bits he likes and doesn't try to fill in the gaps". He relies heavily on designers to cover for his laziness and you can see that in his design interviews. He goes up to designers and tells them to make him a copy of an anime character, they then have to figure out whatever non-sense he's babbling and convert that into something functional for the game world. The further the souls games went the less stuff there was to rip off and the more it had to rely on it's own lack luster backstory. 3 is basically a meta game and it's not interesting because the base of the souls games aren't deep enough to pull it off. Lots of stolen ideas and relying on an underutilized genre works for most games, but once you get to game 4 and 5 it's starting to look like a horror friday the 13th and nightmare on elm street where everyone is Flanderized and you hope speeding up the combat will be enough to cover for everything else being dead in the water.

 

[Furret]

I don't mind a more action focused game if the game can do something interesting with that action. I got to the Dancer and I was about done with DaS3 because I saw the same boss fight again and again. Even the designs I find interesting aren't interesting to fight when they all act so similar, force you to learn 2 movesets where half of them are just gotchas or add some bullshit secondary element which spoils a good first phase (dragonslayer armour phase 1 is great, the 2nd is just annoying).

This is the one popular criticism of DS3 that I don't understand at all. How are all of the bosses similar? They're all pretty distinct to me. A decent chunk of them have some kind of gimmick that requires the player to do more than just learn a moveset if they want to win, and the ones where you actually are just learning patterns to win all have pretty distinct movesets IMO. It's not like DS2 where a quarter of the bosses are humanoids with nearly identical attack patterns save one or two unique moves that you learn how to deal with immediately.

These guys did a proper FPS breakdown of bloodborne. It's not an issue with my PS4, it's an issue with the engine they use for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDIvDPRcPA

Maybe it's just because I mostly played consoles back when I was playing BB, but I never had an issue with the FPS. Good on them for improving it though.

 

[9263900263]

A quarter of the bosses being humans in armour still leaves you with a shit load of unique boss enemies. Dark souls 3 has less bosses and almost all of them are just roll and stab over and over.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

Surprised there hasn’t been a thread regarding the “Just Cause” series yet.

 

[Furret]

A quarter of the bosses being humans in armour still leaves you with a shit load of unique boss enemies. Dark souls 3 has less bosses and almost all of them are just roll and stab over and over.

Most of the unique bosses in DS2 are also roll-and-stab affairs. They're memorable and distinct because of their unique designs and movesets. Same thing with DS3.

 

[9263900263]

Most of the unique bosses in DS2 are also roll-and-stab affairs. They're memorable and distinct because of their unique designs and movesets. Same thing with DS3.

And by the time you get to dark souls 3 you have already been through 90 bosses to get there if you're playing in order. Depending on what patch you're playing those bosses may also be completely broken or push overs.

If you haven't watched the video on souls games lacking soul it's highly worth watching to explain it. One of the big problems is the bosses aren't designed to be fair fights any more, but rather designed to catch out players. Instead of remembering the unique attacks, the most common attack you're going to recall is that attack they delay to punish your natural timing instincts which causes you to get chunked. One or two bosses having that is fine, but every boss in 3 has it and it makes them all become tedious to learn which is why the stab and roll problem exists so much in 3. The series starts to punish you not for making bad in universe decision but for meta decisions instead. Another example is mimics in 3, mimics shouldn't be common enemies or they aren't effective, in Dark souls 3 you run into so many mimics you start to wonder when you will find a normal chest. It's no longer about putting an interesting trap in the game it's about trying to sucker punch any player who doesn't follow the meta game the series now expects.

 

[Furret]

And by the time you get to dark souls 3 you have already been through 90 bosses to get there if you're playing in order. Depending on what patch you're playing those bosses may also be completely broken or push overs.

I've never heard of a boss going from completely busted to a pushover because of a patch, could you give an example?

If you haven't watched the video on souls games lacking soul it's highly worth watching to explain it. One of the big problems is the bosses aren't designed to be fair fights any more, but rather designed to catch out players. Instead of remembering the unique attacks, the most common attack you're going to recall is that attack they delay to punish your natural timing instincts which causes you to get chunked. One or two bosses having that is fine, but every boss in 3 has it and it makes them all become tedious to learn which is why the stab and roll problem exists so much in 3. The series starts to punish you not for making bad in universe decision but for meta decisions instead.

How are delayed attacks unfair, exactly? Yes, they're meant to catch out people who reflexively roll too early, but it's not like you're forced to die/get hit. You can react to a delay the first time a boss uses it. I don't see how that's not a good in-universe decision either. Don't know about you, but if I was facing down a giant monster with a sword and my only means of avoiding death was dodging, I would probably try to wait until I was certain that the monster was actually bringing its sword down before dodging out of the way.

Another example is mimics in 3, mimics shouldn't be common enemies or they aren't effective, in Dark souls 3 you run into so many mimics you start to wonder when you will find a normal chest. It's no longer about putting an interesting trap in the game it's about trying to sucker punch any player who doesn't follow the meta game the series now expects.

I mean, there's an in-universe way to determine if a chest is a Mimic. Just look at the chain. In DS3 you can also see the Mimic breathing if you look closely, which is a more of a tell than DS1 and DS2 had.