Delphouneso

I'm not really sure what point of the game I'm at but I've seen people mention doing the DLC before finishing the game, is it quite clear when you're at that point? Seems like a silly question because nothing is clear, obviously. Also seems odd to be trying to avoid spoilers when I have absolutely no idea what's going on story-wise in this game. Nonetheless I've beaten the following: Cleric Beast, Gascoigne, BSB, Amelia, WoH, Shadows, Rom, Paarl, One Reborn, and Micolash. Should I be thinking about the DLC yet? There are definitely a couple of areas I haven't explored, there's locked door at the top of the cathedral tower (although I think I have the key for that now), the area before I got ported to Micolash island, and there's loads of items/keys I have that I haven't used, plus boss names I've seen in this thread that I haven't encountered. Saying that how do I even access the DLC? Fairly certain I have it seen as I bought the GOTY edition, does it just appear at a headstone in the HD when I'm 'ready'? Edit: I've done zero chalice dungeons either, should I do those before the DLC? I feel like I'm maybe underlevelled a bit as well cause I've not done any farming really, I watched a video of the One Reborn after beating it and the guy mentioned having like 40+ Vit, I think I'm at 28.

Don't know why you're all so worried about Man Utd, Leeds have shown us the way.

Do people Google a lot of stuff whilst playing this game? I ask cause I generally like to play games blind, I feel like I get the best experience that way, and then I'll maybe google stuff on a second playthrough to make sure I don't miss too much. But with Bloodborne I'm starting to feel like I'm missing out on a lot by playing blind. I Youtube every boss after I've beaten them cause I like to see how it's 'supposed' to be done, whether I missed any weaknesses or clever strategies - as a side note it's genuinely surprising how many of these 'how to' boss guides are just people eating hits and chugging vials, and even more surprising that it works - but outside of that I've been playing blind, up until Rom the spider thing. I must've spent close to half an hour fannying around at Byrgenwerth, I was convinced there must be a boss because there was a summoning point, I ran everywhere, I went through every item in my inventory trying to find something that might summon a boss, I panicked that maybe the old guy in the chair was the boss and I killed him rather than using an item on/near him, I even took a peek over the edge looking for something to drop down on, until I gave in and looked it up to discover you have to jump in the sea. You know, that thing that kills you instantly anywhere else in the game. And it got me thinking, surely I'm not in the minority in not being able to find Rom? And if I can nearly miss what - as far as I can tell considering it teleports you to Yahar-gul after - is not an optional boss, what else have I missed? I mean there's so many items in my inventory that I've got no idea of their purpose I wouldn't be surprised if I've missed a boss or two.

Every time I start to enjoy this game it does something to annoy me. What on earth is Darkbeast Paarl? Luckily - despite my intitial fears - it's not a difficult fight, but man is it an awkward mess. And that whole area leading up to it with the bell ringers and the giant laser beams, hopefully that's not the direction the rest of the game is heading because running around manically looking for one enemy whilst being chased by half the map, being shot through walls and round corners by magic bullets, and trying to avoid being zapped by a giant laser is not my idea of fun, not even in this game.

Baggies xG was 0.04. Whether you put much stock in xG stats or not I don't think I've ever seen one that low.

Amelia, Witch of Hemwick, and Shadows of Yharnam down. Man Amelia pissed me off. Fight felt like a carbon copy of BSB, only with all the camera wrestling and furry leg hacking unpredictability of the Cleric Beast. I kept getting sort of stuck on her legs, when she wriggles about the back of her legs interrupt your attacks and I kept getting stuck in a series of push-back animations. Glad that one's over The other two were a piece of piss, although the areas leading to both were a bit annoying. And I lost 100k echoes when I went AFK near the Forest lantern forgetting there's a pair of crows there. Still not really sure where I sit with this game, I think I'm enjoying it? The art style isn't my thing, there's no real story to speak of, the environments are mostly a bunch of copy paste, it's intentionally infuriating, and at times a bit buggy. But I keep playing it, and it's kinda giving me that nostalgia hit of playing a good MMO.

Blood Starved Beast down. Made harder work of it than I should have but I kept getting poisoned going into the final phase which put me on the defensive and trying to use multiple items whilst fleeing from a hyper aggressive boss wasn't working out well for me. The game changer was accidentally discovering you can backstab/stun it during its transformation, which allowed me to get a visceral off going into the final phase meaning no poison and I only needed a couple of hits to finish it off. Was extra satisfying in the end because my successful attempt was such a clean run, didn't use any consumables and I think I only got hit once. Didn't really know where to go from there so I wandered back to Cathedral Ward to see if I'd missed anything only to get killed by a new enemy and end up in prison, a lot of beating my head against a brick wall later and I gave in and googled the area to discover the general consensus is I should just run and leave that place, so I did. Found a lift near the Cathedral lamp that I'm pretty sure wasn't there before, fell down a tower and died but clocked a door on my way down which piqued my interest, some very frustrating parkour and a few more falling deaths later and I'm now dressed like a doll. Quick question: I'm playing offline, is there any use for Insight or is it just for summoning people online?

You can play through individual chapters if you know where that safe is and wanna go back for it. As for the supplements/weapon parts I can only assume you've missed them as I'm pretty sure they're all fixed drops and not tied to difficulty or anything (supplements definitely, not 100% sure on weapon parts). There aren't enough to unlock everything in one run but it's not far off, so I guess if you've missed a few it might seem like a lot but I definitely missed some and I'm pretty sure I still maxed out two skill trees on my first run. I posted this earlier in the thread but if you're planning on a second play through there's an option for turning on 'enhanced listen mode' in accessibilty options, it lets you pulse for items in an area, I wouldn't use it on a first playthrough but for a collectible run I found it more immersive than trying to play and read a guide / watch youtube.

Had this a while but finally got round to playing it this week. I like some things, I don't like some things. I almost put the game down because I just couldn't take down Cleric Beast, must've taken 30 attempts to beat it and it wasn't even satisfying when I did because the whole episode felt like I was fighting the game with its janky camera angles and awkward hit boxes rather than fighting the boss. Nonetheless I persevered and next thing I know I've made light work of Father Gascoigne in 3 attempts (which should've been 1 or 2 if not for some fumbling with ammo conversion) and lo and behold it was challenging, but fair, enjoyable, satisfying.. just what I'd been promised. I guess me and the Cleric Beast just don't get along. SInce then the game's kinda clicked, you pick up some quality of life improvements and combat mechanics the game doesn't tell you about (jump attacks have been a game changer for me, when they work), find some short cuts etc (actually more satisfying than beating a boss I think). But it's still got it's annoyances, the camera has yet to annoy me again quite like it did for Cleric Beast but it's still far from perfect, getting hit through walls/pillars/floors is never not going to be annoying, and there does seem to be a decent amount of luck/RNG involved. I don't know whether this is just how the game is now I'm out of the starter area but prior to Gascoigne I generally had more blood vials than I knew what to do with, and if I did run out there were reliable farm spots, since Gascoigne (up to Blood Starved Beast now) I've barely been dropped a single blood vial, and no ammo at all from enemies other than a stack hidden in a corner. I don't find that challenging so much as frustrating, when I finally get to a boss after fighting through an entire area to find I've no pots and have to go all the way back to buy some and go again, really disrupts the flow of the game. As for Blood Starved Beast, nearly took it down first attempt and thought it would be a gimme after that, but it's proving a tad more difficult than that, mostly because it seems to have a disproportionately small hitbox. I've no problem dodging its attacks, get myself into great positions to strike, and then I can't hit the fecking thing, my attacks seem to just go straight through it half the time, which frustrates me so I get sloppy and it gets some hits in/poisons me. I'm only about 5 attempts in and I've not been using consumables either (like to save them until I feel I'm on a good one) so I've no doubt I'll get it soon, might even have a crack with the extended reach of the whip see if that helps. Edit: Forgot to mention that sodding gattling gun with it's nonsensical LoS! And is that hunter (the ground level one not the big boy) by the church supposed to behave like that? Kept running at me then running away, then when I got him into melee he kinda just seemed to get stuck and didn't even try to hit back, felt like he was bugged out.

Must be really difficult for the BBC to find a picture of Dean in Villa garb.

See my post above in regard to Danny Ings. I get the point you're trying to make, but surely if these players are that desperate to play first team football they'll be on the phone to us and other clubs anyway? And I actually think it shows more ambition that rather than just accept cast offs from above we're trying to compete with the top clubs for these players' signatures before they move.

You can't really use Danny Ings as a yardstick for the kind of signing we should be making. Firstly Southampton are his boyhood club so they'd have had more pull signing him and were always more likely to get a tune out of him. Secondly with his injury record £18m was still a pretty big risk, he was just as likely to get a season long injury in his first game as he was to score as many as he has, we weren't and aren't exactly in a position to take those kinds of risks. Yeah it looks like a great signing in hindsight but could easily have been an £18m Danny Drinkwater.

Henry's red card rescinded.

Getting towards mid-way through my second run and for anyone who's finished the game and doesn't fancy a full second play through I'd definitely recommend at least just playing through some of the individual encounters again on max difficulty, the gameplay and combat mechanics really are brilliant. The variety of enemies and tools you have at your disposal makes for so many different fun ways you can play through each encounter

On the subject of difficulty I'm not keen on the super passive AI on Survivor+, it's not that I need or want their help, but it makes them feel less a part of your experience when they keep getting stranded half way across the map, and I've actually missed a couple of bits of dialogue due to them being so far away from me.

On my second play through on Survivor+ difficulty, which is described as being more difficult than normal Survivor difficulty, but I don't know whether that extra difficulty is enough to compensate for having already unlocked most of the talent trees? You'd assume so, but thus far it's not been as difficult as I was expecting, though I'm not too far in, and I think the fact I tend to avoid using guns where possible means I'm not really noticing the lack of ammo all that much. I'm really enjoying how detailed this game is as well. I thought I'd been quite thorough the first time through but I'm noticing even more second time around. There's some interesting references in letters/dialogue to events later in the game, or characters who've yet to appear that I wouldn't have clocked first time through, stuff that carries some extra weight knowing what's to come, but also little (or big) environmental details that I either hadn't noticed or hadn't clicked that actually add a lot more depth to either the story or the characters involved. Slight gameplay spoiler:

I've not tried it myself and I'm not sure I'd use it on my first play-through but I read you can turn on 'enhanced listen mode' in the accessibility options to 'scan' an area for items. Might be a useful half-way house between googling and maintaining immersion.

Finished it yesterday, thought it was brilliant. Don't need to go into how good the game looks, but it does. Enjoyed the updated combat mechanics, melee kills feel really satisfying and well earned, the enemies feel less scripted, stealth seemed a bit more difficult to accomplish at points during the game but the addition of full prone and larger more detailed environments again makes the process more engaging and more rewarding, stealth killing an entire area without being spotted is immensely satisfying. Hate the dogs. I had the same problem as I had in the first (and in many other games actually) which is largely my own fault for being a compulsive completionist in that I can't leave anything un-explored, and so rather than enjoying the splendid environment I ended up spending large portions of the game with the camera pointed at the floor/walls looking for items. I only include it as a slight criticism because I wouldn't do it if the game didn't reward me for doing it, however I will say (as far as I'm aware) they didn't hide items during key plot points. And actually whilst rooting around for collectables can sometimes be a distraction collecting and reading all the letters really added to my enjoyment of the game. As for the story:

It's really difficult. My grandad passed from Covid-19 a few weeks ago, I didn't get to see him before he died, neither did my Dad, because of social distancing. Now thousands are gathering in the streets together to protest. But some of what I've seen and read in relation to BLM and the protests over the past couple of weeks, the violence, the hatred, the aggression, the ignorance, has genuinely brought me to tears. It makes me so angry shᴉt like this is still prevalent in this day and age. And I'm a straight, white, middle class male. I can't even begin to imagine how it feels to be black/asian/disabled/gay/etc in Britain or the wider world right now. I can't begin to imagine how angry I'd feel every fuckᴉng day that this stuff still goes on, that it's still deemed acceptable by society at large. So if Tyrone thinks that the right thing for him to do is join the protests, he's got my backing 100%. And everything about his character suggests it won't be a decision he took lightly.

Just got back from the supermarket. I saw a man who I'd put in his 80s coming out with nothing but a bag of potatoes, another older gentleman with nothing but milk and bread, and a woman of a similar age loudly declare she'd 'had enough of this distancing rubbish'. There were also loads of couples going in together despite being told that if two of them were going in they'd have to wait for two people to come out thus further holding up the rest of the queue. The builders on the site opposite our house also seem to have gone back to work as normal, and the amount of traffic on the roads didn't seem out of the ordinary for any other Wednesday. Whitty was right when he said people would get bored of the restrictions if they imposed them too early, but I'm not even sure he imagined it would happen this quickly.

Might be some staffing issues if they decide to restart the economy in London whilst still restricting travel out of Devon.

I know you're not being overly serious, and if the cyclists are indeed taking up 3/4 of the road some of them are driving into oncoming traffic, but it's actually safer for cyclists to ride side by side than in single file, and safer for you to overtake them. See crude illustration below: That being said if they're not all from the same household they shouldn't be out on group rides giving the rest of us a bad name.