Delphouneso

Wordle 220 2/6

My second 2/6, no hole in one yet.

Great goal. Louie looked like he needed that one.

6 hours ago, Designer1 said:

Glad you still enjoyed it despite its flaws.

- I love Tomb of Giants! Atmospherics are superb, and when the giant skelly doggos attack its some serious heart racing stuff. The Maggot headpiece is a must though. First time I went there without it by mistake. Didn't end well.

Maybe this was why I hated it. I was using the skull lantern which meant permantly holding L1 the entire time I was in that place (which also prevents you from jumping), also meant I wasn't able to use a shield, and with low vit most of those enemies 1 or 2 shot me.

6 hours ago, Designer1 said:

- you'll kick yourself when you see how you're supposed to kill Ceaseless Discharge.

'ceaseless discharge cheese' is one of the more interesting phrases I've typed into Google.

6 hours ago, Designer1 said:

- if you do another playthrough I suggest going Sorc and using an int scaling weapon (the spear that you can create from the Moonlight Butterfly is my weapon of choice). It's really fun seeing how differently it plays from range.

Yeah this is definitely how I'd approach a subsequent playthrough, I really enjoyed a glass cannon playthrough of Bloodborne despite how clunky and limited the 'spells' are in that game, it'd be nice to have a go in a game with a more in depth magic system. Though I did find pyromancy largely useless in this run.

Also I have to say now that I've finished the game I'm massively impressed you managed to make it through the whole thing without falling off anything. Did you include the DLC in your no death run?

Okay I'm done.

I feel like I've had a lot of issues with this game but overall I've enjoyed it. The combat is clunky and the environment is infuriating, but I did enjoy the world it was set in. Though I'm not sure why I spent four bosses worth of time in Izalith and only one in Anor Londo. The DLC is great too, I don't know how much time passed between its release and the main game but it feels way more polished, the bosses are a real step up in quality and difficulty too.

Worst bosses:

1. Bed of Chaos - doesn't need explaining.
2. Capra Demon - dogs are annoying anyway but two of them and a boss in the game's smallest boss arena, coupled with one of the most infuriating boss runs to even get to the arena in the first place - I didn't enjoy this one.
3. Ceaseless Discharge - its hitbox doesn't line up with its animations which makes it difficult to dodge and it can also hit you through walls. It seemingly only has two attacks and thus makes for a pretty uninteresting yet potentially frustrating encounter. Also has a name that sounds like an STI.

Best bosses:

1. Artorias - plays like Orphan of Kos lite. I'm generally more a fan of humanoid bosses anyway but he's everything you want from a good boss. Aggressive, fast, varied and unpredictable moveset, great arena, great music, great back story. I'm assuming he can't be parried (I'd given up trying to parry bosses by this point) but it would be great if he had a tiny parry window on of or two of his attacks too.
2. Ornstein and Smough - best boss in the main game by a distance, Anor Londo is one of the best areas of the game and this was a really fun boss with a minor puzzle element. (I killed Ornstein first btw)
3. Bell Gargoyles - I could've put Kalameet here but as frustrating as I intitially found the gargoyles they taught me a lot about the game's mechanics and I find myself looking forward to fighting them again.

Honourable mention to my favourite NPC: Hawkeye Gough. That guy should voice audiobooks.

Despite there being a tonne of weapons, armour, spells and play styles to explore I feel less enthused about subsequent playthroughs of this game. There are certain areas I just have no interest in going through again (Tomb of the Giants I'm looking at you) and I'm not sure the main game is challenging enough to tempt me into any challenge runs. That being said it's time to go watch some VaatiVidya lore vids and figure out what I need to platinum.

Manus would be a much better fight if his combo was a grab. Maybe it's just cause I'm running a low vit build but I can avoid the first two hits and the rest will still kill me at full HP. It's annoying that he can start it whilst you're staggered too making it an unavoidable one shot. /rant

There's a few issues with the combat in this game but I think my biggest problem is that you can only dodge in four directions whilst locked on. Took me a while to discover that's why the combat felt so clunky and I feel like it really hampers the game.

In Bloodborne choosing whether or not to lock on felt like a tactical choice, in this it seems unless you're using a shield and blocking your way through fights locking on is just a hindrance so I've basically played exclusively unlocked since about Capra Demon onwards, the problem with that is blocking, parrying, running attacks and jumping attacks are much harder to execute unlocked, which hasn't been a huge issue because none of the bosses have been too challenging anyway - or they're so big they're hard to miss - but it makes the combat feel quite unintuitive and it can be quite awkward constantly having to manually recenter the camera.

To balance this moan with a positive I just started the DLC and mechanically the DLC bosses are an instant upgrade on everything else I've fought so far, faster, more aggresive, more unpredictable and more challenging. Artorias is the first boss where I've had to actually learn his moveset and look out for his tells. Unfortunately these bosses just emphasise the above issue.

Okay cool not just me then.

Bed of Chaos is an awful boss. Actually all 4 of the bosses I've fought down here in fire town have been pretty disappointing.

40 minutes ago, villaglint said:

Is anybody skilled enough with video editing to make a YT video of his touches vs Man City? 

I only saw the last 25 mins and feel like I missed out. Very little video of him in a Swindon shirt generally on YT. 

On 08/01/2022 at 14:12, Brumstopdogs said:

29 minutes ago, Designer1 said:

100% physical shield = win.

I've passed them now (thanks to some manic dodging) but I'm not sure my shield choice would've made a difference. I'm still using the Grass Crest shield which is 95% I think, the issue was they just trapped me against a wall and smashed through my stamina.

I only ended up inside the painting in the first place because I coincidentally saw it in a Gameranx video a coupld of days before. Anor Londo looks nice. Iron Golem was.. a boss? Currently navigating a(nother) narrow walkway whilst being shot with giant arrows by two giant armoured knights. Genuinely feel like the environment has been my most challenging enemy thus far, even most of the enemies seem to fall off things just as often as I do.

**** those skeleton wheels.

Nice one @Designer1, is that with all bosses or are there some skips involved? I've not really looked into DS1 challenge runs for fear of spoilers. I'm not certain I could manage a run without falling off a ledge to be honest, let alone beat the rest of the game. My achilles heel is forgetting where I left lifts and going straight down the shaft [/Kenneth].

Had a couple of decent sessions recently and have now beaten Capra Demon (contender for most annoying boss run?), Gaping Dragon, Quelaag, the Butterfly, and Sif. Capra Demon was the only one that gave me any trouble, thankfully, because if Quelaag was actually difficult I might've started to get annoyed about having to start the fight poisoned. I've all but abandoned my shield since Capra Demon, on bosses at least seen as I'm not tanky enough to tank them and you seemingly can't parry them.

I'm finding it a bit more frustrating than BB, I guess it's an earlier game and it's a bit rougher around the edges - case in point I got stuck in a tree in Darkroot Garden yesterday, lost all my HP but didn't die, just hung there suspended making death noises - and it seems to punish you for more annoying things. The bosses themselves haven't so far been that challenging or frustrating, there's just a lot of claustrophobic areas with narrow walkways/tunnels/ledges and lots of enemies with janky hitboxes and questionable AI which leads to lots of falling or getting stuck in doorways. Not being able to heal through poison/toxins is annoying, you get half way through an area and get poisoned and don't have any moss you're dead, may as well hurl yourself down a lift shaft (maybe it's just the game telling me I should've gone Darkroot > Blightown, as I now have a tonne of moss and no longer need it). 

I also spent a good while trying to cast chaos fireballs with a staff, not realising I needed a Pyromancer's Flame, which I now have and well, fireballs are a bit.. limp?

I'm having fun. Sometimes.

The lastest patch notes. Glad to see they're prioritising gameplay issues.

On 17/12/2021 at 09:09, Designer1 said:

I recommend getting the Grass Crest Shield as soon as possible as it has a Stam regen buff.

I made a mental note to keep an eye out for this, played for a little while, decided to have a root through my inventory and discovered I already have it. No idea where I picked it up but I'll take it. Upon equipping it I also realised I'd been using it at one point because I'd wondered what those green arrows were under my stamina bar. Also bought a Scimitar because it had the highest dex scaling of the weapons the blacksmith sells and my purchase was almost instantly justified when my character started doing cartwheel attacks. We all know the most important stat in Souls games is flamboyance.

Light bulb moment when I realised stamina regen is slowed when your shield is up, gargoyles smited. It's a good mechanic too, I like it. I also switched to a faster weapon which helped.

Couple of questions for you vets: is Dex ths game's Skill? Does it affect visceral/riposte/backstab damage the same way? And is a shield + dex weapon build a thing? I like the idea of a quick and nifty shield parry build, seems like a decent middle ground that feels quick and familiar but also forces me to learn to use a shield. Finally is it worth upgrading some of these earlier weapons or are the decent ones further down the road?

9 hours ago, Designer1 said:

Oh absolutely. Definitely go with the shield for a while, it's what most people (including me) did.

BTW, re. Gargoyles - summon Solaire for the fight. He's a BIG help.

 

I'm not much of a summoner. I get that it's been put in the game to be used, and it does change the fight somewhat, but I just wouldn't get any satisfaction from beating a boss with a summon. These 'goyles for example the challenging part of the fight is managing both mobs simultaneously in the second phase right? I'm assuming a summon just solves that problem for you, which removes the 'fun' from the fight for me. 

1 minute ago, Designer1 said:

It's amazing how much you rely on a shield when you first play (no bad thing). I very very rarely use on on my playthroughs now as I tend to just go light armour and dodge even if I'm a strength build (unless I go Giant Dad which is **** fun)

Might just be a case of better learning the iframe timing or adjusting my dodge direction, my instinct to dodge in/through seemed to be getting punished a lot more. Also I should probably just embrace the Souls games and go shield first playthrough, force myself to learn a new playstyle rather than try to play it like Bloodborne, as tempting as it is and as much as I miss my Blades of Mercy.

Picked up all three Souls games in the sales and I've just started 1. Combat feels a lot slower and more one dimensional than Bloodborne and that's taking some adjustment, as is using a shield - I basically ignored it at first but dodging doesn't seem to be the play here. Just got to the gargoyle boss(es), had a few attempts, fell off the roof twice in a row and called it a day.

13 hours ago, Wainy316 said:

Tbh I'd like to see penalties scrapped except for denial of a goal scoring opportunity.  Too many games are decided by a team more or less being given a goal as a reward for a trivial foul.

Completely agree with this but where do you draw the line? I think penalties like the Harry Kane one against us should never be given, I'm sure we also had a handball given against us from a shot that was going off target last season, and those ones where a player gets a toe on the ball then gets taken out by the keeper when they're never getting to the ball anyway, I think those ones are easy. But then beyond that there's a massive grey area where you could argue a case either way in a lot of situations over what is and isn't a goal scoring opportunity. I think ultimately referees need to just start applying common sense rather than blindly following the rule book to the letter, if a shot that's going out of play hits a hand it's not a **** penalty.

I've never wanted a match to end so fast when we're losing just to shut the **** commentary off.

I was hoping they'd be braver, rip the plaster off and leave MW19/BOCW behind, implement some bigger changes to gameplay (I was a big fan of the Iron Trials mode they did a while back, more of that sort of thing), as is once the novelty of the new map wears off I'm not sure there's enough to get me playing regularly again, but maybe the map design combined with the minor changes they've made will prove me wrong and shake up the gameplay loop a bit. It does seem a bit silly having three games worth of weapons though, particularly with so many duplicates now, and when we all know they'll make sure it's the Vanguard weapons that are meta anyway.

Console only crossplay would be nice too, but I doubt they'll ever implement that.

The commentator just said 'in rugby that's a try'. Lets just start giving 3 points for skying it and having waist high tackles as well shall we?

Not sure what the Palace fans are annoyed about, Milivojevic should've been booked, we should've had a pen (and Milivojovic a second yellow?), Cash got booked for being pushed in the face, and Kouyate somehow hasn't been booked for committing roughly 900 fouls that half.

Nakamba, Targett, Ramsey, and Mings playing really well.

1 hour ago, villa4europe said:

you think these will go service games too in the long run?

i came to the cold war party late, there seems an overwhelming amount of additional stuff even if 75% of it is pointless filler and an even higher percentage of it you have to pay for, they chuck loads of stuff at you

I think I've mentioned this on here before but I get the feeling COD's yearly releases going forward will essentially serve as expansion packs for Warzone, they're making more money from selling cosmetics for WZ than they are from developing standalone multiplayer games every year. I think all the additional content for Cold War is to compensate for how little it launched with - from what I gather Treyarch took over Cold War late into development after there was a fallout with another studio so it was rushed out - whereas Vanguard has launched with a lot more content so it'll be interesting to see how much more they add, not to mention half the additional maps for CW were remakes.

As for BF2042 I think they're sat on a gold mine with Portal, and I think going forward that's probably where they should focus their efforts - particularly if they want to go head to head with WZ/COD, they've basically given the player base the keys to the city to make the game they want to play. I could definitely see them moving to a F2P model with that in the future.