Dark Souls + Demon's Souls + Bloodborne Megathread VIII. At The End - Games

[vid]https://d.maxfile.ro/mtzcxmjzib.webm[/vid] Hello, welcome to the Dark Souls, Demon's Souls & Bloodborne megathread! From Software created the Souls series along with other great games such as Armored Core and King's Field. The Souls games are action/adventure RPGs that are well known by many for their challenging and rewarding gameplay. Demon's Souls is the first game in the series and is exclusive to the PS3. Dark Souls is its spiritual successor, available on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Dark Souls 2 is the latest game in the series and is to be released on March 11th, 13th, and 14th worldwide for Xbox 360 and PS3, with the PC version coming out on April 25th. The PC port of the original Dark Souls was not so great, however there are several modifications that help to fix a lot of the problems, you'll find most of them linked below under the "Dark Souls Prepare To Die Edition" image. Of all these helpful modifications, DSFix is almost necessary. [img]http://i.imgur.com/pql1doo.jpg[/img] Journey to a horror-filled gothic city where deranged mobs and nightmarish creatures lurk around every corner. Face your fears as you search for answers in the ancient city of Yharnam, now cursed with a strange endemic illness spreading through the streets like wildfire. Danger, death and madness lurk around every corner of this dark and horrific world, and you must discover its darkest secrets in order to survive. Use holy chalices to gain entrance to a network of vast underground ruins, filled with traps, beasts, and rewards, to explore and conquer alone or with others. These procedurally generated dungeons offer brand new challenges to master. Armed with a unique arsenal of weaponry, including guns and saw cleavers, you'll need wits, strategy and reflexes to take down the agile and intelligent enemies that guard the city's dark secrets. [img]http://i.imgur.com/MPbHnOo.jpg[/img] Have an entry from Wikipedia: Dark Souls III is an action role-playing game set in a third-person perspective. According to director Hidetaka Miyazaki, the game's gameplay design "follows closely from Dark Souls II". Players are equipped with a variety of weapons including shortbows, explosives like fire bombs, greatswords and dual-wielding swords to fight against enemies, and shields that can be used to deflect an enemies' attack and protect the player from suffering damage. In addition, attacks can be evaded through dodge-rolling. Magic, Estus flasks and bonfires, which serve as checkpoints, also return from previous installments. Ashes, according to Miyazaki, will play an important role in the game. Throughout the game, players encounter different types of enemies, each with different behaviors. Some of the them change their combat pattern during battles. Combat and movements were made faster and more fluid in Dark Souls III. Several players' movements, such as backstepping and swinging heavy weapons, can be performed more rapidly, allowing players to deal more damage in a short period of time. New combat features are introduced in Dark Souls III, including "Ready Stance", which are special abilities for players that allow them to deal much more damage to enemies than ordinary attacks are capable of. Small gravestones are also introduced. These gravestones light up when interacted with and not only serve as players' torches, but also provide additional lore to the game. The game puts more focus on role-playing, in which the character builder is expanded and weapons are improved to provide more tactical options to players. The game features fewer maps than its predecessor Dark Souls II, but levels were interconnected and were made larger, which encourages exploration. The agility aspect from Dark Souls II was removed from Dark Souls III. The game would also feature multiplayer elements. [highlight]Release dates:[/highlight] Japan: [del]March 24th, 2016[/del] [I][B]OUT NOW[/B][/I] Worldwide: April 11th, 2016 [img]http://i.imgur.com/jMHxf5r.jpg[/img] Embark on a journey through an entirely different world within the Dark Souls II universe, where stepped pyramids span a vast underground cavern. It is said that one of the ancient crowns lay buried deep within these dark caverns but surely such a valued item cannot sit unguarded. Explore in search of a crown that holds the strength of lords from times long past. The story of Dark Souls II is not directly connected to Dark Souls, though they are set in the same world. The protagonist finds themselves in the Kingdom of Drangleic, a once powerful and prosperous land which fell into ruin and damnation after a series of unfortunate events, in search of a cure for their affliction, the curse of the Undead. During the glory days of Drangleic, the realm was ruled over by King Vendrick, a just and honorable king who led his country to prosperity with the help of his high-ranking knights, who were selected by the king himself for demonstrating both valor and charity. Drangleic was also known for its brave soldiers, the Defenders, who were known for using both pyromancies and advanced swordplay techniques to slay their foes. Due to this, the Defenders were the most feared soldiers in all of the kingdoms. The only warriors who were able to put a challenge to the Defenders were the Silverdrake Knights of Lindeldt, whose ability for casting miracles during battle made them worthy rivals to Drangleic's army. Cursed with the fate of the undead, will you fall like the mighty knights before you or will you rise and find a cure? [img]http://i.imgur.com/QxW9ozK.jpg[/img] In the Age of Ancients, the world was unformed, shrouded by fog, a land of grey crags, archtrees, and everlasting dragons but then there was fire and with fire came disparity. Heat and cold, life and death, and of course.. Light and Dark. Then, from the Dark, they came and found the Souls of Lords within the flame. Nito, the first of the dead. The Witch of Izalith, and her daughters of chaos. Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight, and his faithful knights. And the furtive pygmy, so easily forgotten. With the Strength of Lords, they challenged the dragons. Gwyn's mighty bolts peeled apart their stone scales. The witches weaved great firestorms. Nito unleashed a miasma of death and disease. And Seath the Scaleless betrayed his own, and the dragons were no more. Thus began the Age of Fire. But soon, the flames will fade, and only Dark will remain. Even now, there are only embers, and man sees not light, but only endless nights. And amongst the living are seen, carriers of the accursed Darksign. As an accursed undead, your journey starts here in this land of fallen dragons and failed gods. Will you regain your humanity and rise to face the challenges ahead or will you simply hollow and admit defeat? [quote] [b]Useful Links for Dark Souls[/b] >Wikis: [url]http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/[/url] [url]http://darksouls.wikidot.com/[/url] [url]http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/[/url] >Character Planner [url]http://mugenmonkey.com/darksouls/[/url] >Build Gallery (Middle click the images) [url]http://darksoulsbuilds.imgur.com/all/[/url] >Terminology [url]http://darksouls.wikidot.com/terminology[/url] >DSfix for PC v 2.4 (TURN OFF IN-GAME AA) [url]http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?p=684[/url] >Dark Souls Mouse Fix [url]http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~petska/[/url] >Face customization guide [url]http://imgur.com/a/SARvG[/url] >CE 101 / Character and Textures 102 (Now with fall break and egghead) [url]http://pastebin.com/DMJNSH1r[/url] How to access the DLC content: >Kill hydra, save dusk, place lordvessel, kill blue golem in Dook's, return to cove, acquire anal devastation [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/groups/fpdarksouls["]>Dark Souls Steam Group[/URL] [/quote] [img]http://i.imgur.com/76odIHA.jpg[/img] Demon's Souls was the first game in the Souls series and is stand alone. There is no Demon's Souls 2 at this point in time. The game is set in the kingdom of Boletaria, ruled by the aging King Allant XII. Because of his greed, the king searched for power and prosperity through a dark ritual of channeling the power of souls that brought unprecedented prosperity to Boletaria, until the "Deep Fog" covered the land's outskirts, cutting off the kingdom from the outside world. Neighboring kingdoms sent scouts to investigate but none returned after entering the fog. It was only after Vallarfax of the royal Twin Fangs broke free from the fog that the rest of the world could be told of Boletaria's plight. By channeling souls, King Allant had awakened the Old One, a great demon residing below the Nexus. With the Old One's awakening, a dark fog had swept in that within it unleashed demons who feasted on the souls of mankind, where those left alive without a soul became insane and violent. Without resistance, the fog slowly begins to spread beyond Boletaria. This is where you, the player come in. Will you attempt to help save the Kingdom of Bolataria or will you side with the demons and feast on the souls of mankind? [b]Previous Threads:[/b] [url=https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1267094]Thread IV. Dark Souls 2 is coming, prepare to die again[/url] [url=https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1372234]Thread V. Go Beyond Death[/url] [url=https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1446197]Thread VI. Katana Gank Squad Edition[/url] [url=https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1485131]Thread VII. Now Only Embers Remain[/url]

I bless this thread with the power of the sun!

i can't believe dark souls 3 isn't out yet

What the fuck is a dark souls

Has anyone played DS with a game cube controller w/USB adapter? It's the only game pad I have and was wondering if it was too funky for a souls game.

[QUOTE=Abaddabadon;49655738]Has anyone played DS with a game cube controller w/USB adapter? It's the only game pad I have and was wondering if it was too funky for a souls game.[/QUOTE] I played it with an N64 controller once. [i]Once.[/i] [sp]That was some funky funky shit.[/sp]

[QUOTE=NoNameForEvil;49655807]I have. It's way too funky; the lack of an LB, L3 or R3 means that you always have to miss loads of stuff out when configuring it.[/QUOTE] Is it better than playing with KB+M at least? [QUOTE=Raxas;49655767]I played it with an N64 controller once. [i]Once.[/i] [sp]That was some funky funky shit.[/sp][/QUOTE] Sounds like a fun stream challenge run or something

[QUOTE=Abaddabadon;49655948]Is it better than playing with KB+M at least? Sounds like a fun stream challenge run or something[/QUOTE] KB+M isn't the antichrist everyone makes it out to be. Configure properly and it's decent to use, 1k hours, all achievements and always with M+KB. The only problem you'll really have is in DS1 with how the camera moves in these bits rather than smoothly, but that's about it.

[QUOTE]No words spoken to one another. No gestures and no greeting. One wishes to take the future by his own means. Be it prolonging the age of Fire, or embracing the age of Dark as it's Lord. The last obstacle stands in your way. A broken King near death and long since hollowed. Yet, the broken King refuses to give in without fighting. He is a stubborn old fool who just wishes to keep things the way they are out of fear for what is unknown. Two wishes collide against each other. There is no need for words to be spoken. All there is, is the broken King and a survivor wishing to take the future by the method he believes is right.[/QUOTE] And they say YouTube comments can't be deep

[QUOTE=EliaMoroes;49656904]And they say YouTube comments can't be deep[/QUOTE] 1 in 10000

Was rewatching this trailer [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHgUuhOsHoA[/media] Is it just me or are these graphics honestly better than DS3's? Presentation and animation quality aside, of course. What the fuck happened?

[QUOTE=MrHeadHopper;49657074]Is it just me or are these graphics honestly better than DS3's?[/QUOTE] What, you mean all the clearly overlayed distracting ember things floating around, and the overdone lens flares (0:36 is the worst) I'm actually surprised how bad it looks at points. There's obviously some heavy colour grading going on. I don't know really, maybe without all the post processing done to the footage it might look better, but it's hard to tell

After spending some time in the Lost Bastille, I'm seriously thinkin about restarting the game and playing as a two-handed, strenght-based, emergency shield amazon or something You may remember me talking shit about Dark Souls' gameplay several times, but never in that game I felt like the path I've chose for my character would had fucked me up in the long run or that I should had better picked up another playing style Simply put, in Dark Souls II there are too many fucking enemies at any given time, making my usual "let's outmanuver and/or stagger them by going in hard and fast" rarely working against anything, and there is always someone ready to stunlock me as soon as my backstabbing invicibility wears off Also, while I kinda like how dual-wielding plays out, I keep asking myself if I couldn't achieve roughly the same amount of damaging with enough stamina and any fast, dex-based weapon, maybe adding a shield in the other hand when it's absolutely required (like I did in Dark Souls) Thoughts? I'd really won't mind start over at this point, since I'm kinda at its earlier stages

[QUOTE=The Rizzler;49657159]What, you mean all the clearly overlayed distracting ember things floating around, and the overdone lens flares (0:36 is the worst) I'm actually surprised how bad it looks at points. There's obviously some heavy colour grading going on. I don't know really, maybe without all the post processing done to the footage it might look better, but it's hard to tell[/QUOTE] Wasn't talking about the cinematic effects. Look at the shadow, texture and overall render quality. There's also higher grade particle effects. It's all way higher yield than anything in DS2. Plus the lightning for most scenes looks way better than anything we ever got. [QUOTE=EliaMoroes;49657211]After spending some time in the Lost Bastille, I'm seriously thinkin about restarting the game and playing as a two-handed, strenght-based, emergency shield amazon or something You may remember me talking shit about Dark Souls' gameplay several times, but never in that game I felt like the path I've chose for my character would had fucked me up in the long run or that I should had better picked up another playing style Simply put, in Dark Souls II there are too many fucking enemies at any given time, making my usual "let's outmanuver and/or stagger them by going in hard and fast" rarely working against anything, and there is always someone ready to stunlock me as soon as my backstabbing invicibility wears off Also, while I kinda like how dual-wielding plays out, I keep asking myself if I couldn't achieve roughly the same amount of damaging with enough stamina and any fast, dex-based weapon, maybe adding a shield in the other hand when it's absolutely required (like I did in Dark Souls) Thoughts? I'd really won't mind start over at this point, since I'm kinda at its earlier stages[/QUOTE] You probably indeed should restart. Powerstance gameplay is only really recommedable when you know the mechanics in and out, same with caster builds because of the stat micromanaging you have to do ontop of the timing & risk assesment you have to do for casts. For your first playthrough it's easier to go with a basic DEX/STR build, hit 100 AGI, hit 40 of your chosen STR/DEX and then go hard on Vit, Vig and End. Also renember that endurance caps at 20.

God Dark Souls 2 has some weird stat mechanics. I forgot how bizzare the caps/scaling were.

[QUOTE=MrHeadHopper;49657220]Wasn't talking about the cinematic effects. Look at the shadow, texture and overall render quality. There's also higher grade particle effects. It's all way higher yield than anything in DS2. Plus the lightning for most scenes looks way better than anything we ever got.[/QUOTE] Yeah that's the downgrade for you. I actually have a suspicion that the particles were added in in post though I don't think it looks better than DS3 though. DS2 had a horrible soft and 'painterly' look to it compared to the jaggy, aliased and more realistic look DS1, DS3 and BB have

[QUOTE=The Rizzler;49657490]Yeah that's the downgrade for you. I actually have a suspicion that the particles were added in in post though I don't think it looks better than DS3 though. DS2 had a horrible soft and 'painterly' look to it compared to the jaggy, aliased and more realistic look DS1, DS3 and BB have[/QUOTE] I pretty much like both and it's a matter of preference at this point, though quality wise most of those trailer assets, not only in that specific trailer but this one aswell, do look higher res. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVtIb8lkAxc[/media] Thing is that DS2 released the way it did and it really looks kinda awful. Compared to the DS3 they've been showing off it's really bad, but I'd still like the trailer DS2 aesthetic more combined with DS3's higher animation quality and the grim theme.

I think a decent ReShade / SweetFX preset can bring back / increase the visuals of the game quite nicely. Some color balancing, level tweaking, and a touch of sharpening might be all you need. Not sure how well ReShade's Ambient Occlusion will work but it's worth a shot as well since ENB doesn't support SotFS. [editline]2nd February 2016[/editline] [url]https://sfx.thelazy.net/games/preset/4968/[/url] This preset shows the Ambient Occlusion working, and it's not too bad-looking but it seems some of the white / black levels are crushed / muted.

Who cares about cutscenes or trailer video grafix If I want pretty cutscenes I'll go watch Toy Story

Once you deal with the first statue in Lost Bastille and enter the door, there are roughly SEVEN two-handed swordmen coming at you in a very short spawn of time Yep, I'm starting over

[QUOTE=EliaMoroes;49658504]Once you deal with the first statue in Lost Bastille and enter the door, there are roughly SEVEN two-handed swordmen coming at you in a very short spawn of time Yep, I'm starting over[/QUOTE] If there is any enemy i can confidently call out as being the worst in my opinion, it's the Royal Swordsmen.

[QUOTE=DeVotchKa;49658516]If there is any enemy i can confidently call out as being the worst in my opinion, it's the Royal Swordsmen.[/QUOTE] Flame salamanders would like a word

I thought those one fuckers that always swung at you at the Dragon Shrine were the worst, but I have been told that they aren't aggressive by default in SotFS.

they aren't if you stop to fight every single drakekeeper

The moonlight blade in DS2, would it have a better AR infused with Fire? Looking at the stats on the wiki, it gains an S scaling while keeping the damage output from the beam and gaining fire attribute? Not entirely sure I'm reading that right.

Reposting because it would suck if no one read this wall of text I spent too long on [QUOTE=Janus Vesta;49658803]I preferred Dark Souls' method where you dedicate the weapon down a particular path. Infusing in DS2 was nice but elemental weapons are incredibly weak and only really useful in PvP to counter resistances. I hate the blood gem system in Bloodborne, weapons are simultaneously too reliant on having powerful blood gems instead of stats and are too easily switched to different damage types. Also the idea of a weapon that you hit people with doing purely fire or lightning damage doesn't sit right with me. IMO the elemental upgrades in DS1 was best because the path was something you had to dedicate your weapon to (or piss away resources if you're going to be indecisive), the weapons were powerful (maybe a tad too powerful), and they didn't scale so you couldn't min-max stats to do 2,000 damage with a club.[/QUOTE] Do you mean the enchanted and divine paths or the fire and lightning paths? The latter was only good because it didn't scale, so you could have base stats and still do damage, but a +15 weapon would pretty much always outdamage, especially if you were going to go against the DLC bosses who had high elemental resistances because it was in vogue back then. The former was pretty much token, as a way of saying "here's a way to make your weapon scale with your damage dealing stat" but the end result was again, less damage than a +15, which I can understand because there'd be no point in going str/dex if you could go int/fai, do the same damage, and also get access to spells and miracles, which were the real strengths of those builds. If you ask me, if lightning spear didn't have limited casts, faith builds wouldn't need anything else. This isn't even mentioning the magic and occult paths, which were pretty much useless, along with the crystal and the raw paths. While I don't like the bloodgem system mainly because of the farming required to get the highest tier gems, I think DS1's system was pretty garbage, too. It was unnecessarily complex and finding a well-hidden item or defeating a tough enemy only for it to drop a kind of titanite that was of no value to you because it was the wrong colour was lame. There shouldn't be barriers in place to stop people from experimenting. DS2's system of upgrading one weapon and being able to change its infusion at any time was the best. A simple system that allowed people to try out paths they were unsure about, especially as it allowed them to reverse the decision if it turns out it didn't suit them. Perhaps it is because of how much less adaptable the hunter tools are in Bloodborne, but arcane builds still let you have one elemental damage type as well as having access to a lot of range and they aren't overpowered, because if they were, every person you'd meet in pvp would be an arcane build. The playstyle involved in arcane is now trying to find the damage type that would most apply to the situation you're in, because enemies can have super high resistances to one kind of element. This actually makes a cool dynamic of using the right gems on the right weapon in order to still do comparable damage to str/skl builds with your weapon, just with more planning needed, rather than the DS1/2 system of "do less damage to everything because split damage lol"

Maybe a system like Dark Souls 2's but with the option to further infuse the weapon further down that path at the cost of another stone would be best? Better scaling and damage in that element at the cost of less scaling ajd physical. It'd give you the option to flux but could make elemental weapons pretty powerful again, obviously though without making physical meaningless by doing too little damage.

[QUOTE=The Rizzler;49658787]Flame salamanders would like a word[/QUOTE] Also Drakekeepers with maces

Yeah but those i can ignore, especially the Salamanders. Royal Swordsmen are always in your way and always swarm and deal balls out ridiculous damage and have wonky hitboxes.

the royal greatsword is cool as fuck but the version the NPCs carry is much bigger than the version you get to use and it pisses me off greatly