Souls-Sloppa

[stormvermin]

Flasks that refill at bonfires was the first step towards turning the games into a boss rush genre.
I don't know how to fix the monotony of having to redo a level because you died. I don't think bonfires are a good replacement.

Dont do boss tries if you are shortly before a level up. Then rush to the boss with no xp and ignore the monsters otw. And in later titles they often just place a bonfire directly before the boss already. And demon souls had the ring which put your hp to 75% that you could stay hollow the whole time. I think ds1 and ds2 had something similar too. You could try again and again just with a little disadvantage to hp usually not lose anything except time.

I found bloodborne more annoying since you had to farm or buy blood vials to heal and they didnt recharge.

DS1 hollowing only prevented you from summoning phantoms, it didn't affect your health. DS2 had the persistent curse hollowing thing and DS3 overfilled your health when you used an ember. If you were trying to control world tendency in Demon's, you were going to be running around in soul form anyway and as you said, with the cling ring it was mostly a negligible difference.
It's super obvious now but over time there was a shift in the "challenge" of the games from needing to trek through an entire level and fight the boss with enough resources intact to the challenge from the level and the boss being completely separate. Pretty much by Bloodborne the bonfire/lamp/whatever was right in front of the boss room with only a couple of exceptions. Rusty's point about flasks is indirectly correct but I think that everything since was the design reacting to the changes brought about by flasks. Bloodborne aside, flasks almost assuredly became a thing because 1) farming for grass is gay and 2) rolling up to a boss fight with 99 dark moon grass is also gay.

[rusty_shackleford]

Not going to finish Demon's Souls but I guess I was probably halfway thru(?). I just finished the storm king boss fight and was at the third or fourth teleporter in every area but the poop area. Other than looking up what certain stats meant related to shields, I was playing blind.

I was playing on RPCS3 emulator, 60 FPS patch.
I picked the knight class.

My thoughts, I'm evaluating the game as-is which includes critiques of the 'subgenre'(so you know not to respond with "that's how the games are like"):

• I suspected it would be like this, but nearly all the characters/side quests are very vague, especially with regards to what advances etc., Presumably you're meant to play thru it on NG++++++++++++ until you get it 'right', or be a cheater and use a walkthrough. Characters started going missing from the nexus without saying anything(I always exhaust all the dialogue when I return), guessing I somehow jumped passed a quest flag or something. I dunno.
• Combat was enjoyable. I found the pacing to be quite good for someone who is not much into fast action games.
• Exploration/level design is very good. I went thru most areas multiple times and kept finding new stuff. The levels are quite challenging.
• Found a few illusory walls, which was neat.
• The upgrade system seemed good with an asterisk that I could already see this is going to take grinding.
• I don't like using one currency for everything.
• I do like the pressure to use the currency rather than hoarding it
• Bosses were fair. If you were looking up meta information, probably much too easy. I had no idea what I was getting into when going in and had to adapt on the fly, which was fun.
• Lack of armor; don't think you can upgrade armor either. I was still using the same armor I started the game with, as I didn't find anything better.
• I just don't like respawning enemies. I'm sure with enough time and effort someone could come up with a more interesting system involving reinforcements, territory control, etc., I dunno. Feels lazy and uninspired.

It was enjoyable until it wasn't so I stopped. I'm not really a fan of these games.

[edit]
Forgot to add that there's good enough enemy variety and enemies are easy enough to work out based upon appearance and observing them for a bit. Enemy behavior is quite varied, I never felt like one enemy was just a reskin of an existing enemy e.g., the dogs have pack behavior, knight guys are more like a duel, etc.,

[Oyster Sauce]

I just don't like respawning enemies. I'm sure with enough time and effort someone could come up with a more interesting system involving reinforcements, territory control, etc., I dunno. Feels lazy and uninspired.

Enemies in 2 stop respawning after you kill them a certain amount of times

[stormvermin]

Characters started going missing from the nexus without saying anything(I always exhaust all the dialogue when I return), guessing I somehow jumped passed a quest flag or something. I dunno.

buenos dias

Yurt.png

[rusty_shackleford]

Characters started going missing from the nexus without saying anything(I always exhaust all the dialogue when I return), guessing I somehow jumped passed a quest flag or something. I dunno.

buenos dias

Nope.

I decided to look it up since I'm finished, it appears the characters that went missing just go missing as the game advances.

[stormvermin]

Characters started going missing from the nexus without saying anything(I always exhaust all the dialogue when I return), guessing I somehow jumped passed a quest flag or something. I dunno.

buenos dias

Nope.

I decided to look it up since I'm finished, it appears the characters that went missing just go missing as the game advances.

Ostrava and the miracle merchant underling leave but I think that's it. It's honestly kinda neat that you sidestepped one of the bigger **** you moments of the game.

[W1llus]

Not going to finish Demon's Souls but I guess I was probably halfway thru(?). I just finished the storm king boss fight and was at the third or fourth teleporter in every area but the poop area. Other than looking up what certain stats meant related to shields, I was playing blind.

I was playing on RPCS3 emulator, 60 FPS patch.
I picked the knight class.

My thoughts, I'm evaluating the game as-is which includes critiques of the 'subgenre'(so you know not to respond with "that's how the games are like"):

• I suspected it would be like this, but nearly all the characters/side quests are very vague, especially with regards to what advances etc., Presumably you're meant to play thru it on NG++++++++++++ until you get it 'right', or be a cheater and use a walkthrough. Characters started going missing from the nexus without saying anything(I always exhaust all the dialogue when I return), guessing I somehow jumped passed a quest flag or something. I dunno.
• Combat was enjoyable. I found the pacing to be quite good for someone who is not much into fast action games.
• Exploration/level design is very good. I went thru most areas multiple times and kept finding new stuff. The levels are quite challenging.
• Found a few illusory walls, which was neat.
• The upgrade system seemed good with an asterisk that I could already see this is going to take grinding.
• I don't like using one currency for everything.
• I do like the pressure to use the currency rather than hoarding it
• Bosses were fair. If you were looking up meta information, probably much too easy. I had no idea what I was getting into when going in and had to adapt on the fly, which was fun.
• Lack of armor; don't think you can upgrade armor either. I was still using the same armor I started the game with, as I didn't find anything better.
• I just don't like respawning enemies. I'm sure with enough time and effort someone could come up with a more interesting system involving reinforcements, territory control, etc., I dunno. Feels lazy and uninspired.

It was enjoyable until it wasn't so I stopped. I'm not really a fan of these games.

[edit]
Forgot to add that there's good enough enemy variety and enemies are easy enough to work out based upon appearance and observing them for a bit. Enemy behavior is quite varied, I never felt like one enemy was just a reskin of an existing enemy e.g., the dogs have pack behavior, knight guys are more like a duel, etc.,

Props for giving the game a fair shake even if the genre isn't your speed (bonus for playing the og game and not the remake). If you wanted to play the game on baby mode you could of either started as a temple knight or royalty which are both hilariously broken for different reasons. Bosses in Demon's Souls are very gimmicky and represent a very different design philosophy that was phased out over time. Ironically DS2 got a lot of **** for having enemies despawn after having killed them enough times.

[rusty_shackleford]

Not going to finish Demon's Souls but I guess I was probably halfway thru(?). I just finished the storm king boss fight and was at the third or fourth teleporter in every area but the poop area. Other than looking up what certain stats meant related to shields, I was playing blind.

I was playing on RPCS3 emulator, 60 FPS patch.
I picked the knight class.

My thoughts, I'm evaluating the game as-is which includes critiques of the 'subgenre'(so you know not to respond with "that's how the games are like"):

• I suspected it would be like this, but nearly all the characters/side quests are very vague, especially with regards to what advances etc., Presumably you're meant to play thru it on NG++++++++++++ until you get it 'right', or be a cheater and use a walkthrough. Characters started going missing from the nexus without saying anything(I always exhaust all the dialogue when I return), guessing I somehow jumped passed a quest flag or something. I dunno.
• Combat was enjoyable. I found the pacing to be quite good for someone who is not much into fast action games.
• Exploration/level design is very good. I went thru most areas multiple times and kept finding new stuff. The levels are quite challenging.
• Found a few illusory walls, which was neat.
• The upgrade system seemed good with an asterisk that I could already see this is going to take grinding.
• I don't like using one currency for everything.
• I do like the pressure to use the currency rather than hoarding it
• Bosses were fair. If you were looking up meta information, probably much too easy. I had no idea what I was getting into when going in and had to adapt on the fly, which was fun.
• Lack of armor; don't think you can upgrade armor either. I was still using the same armor I started the game with, as I didn't find anything better.
• I just don't like respawning enemies. I'm sure with enough time and effort someone could come up with a more interesting system involving reinforcements, territory control, etc., I dunno. Feels lazy and uninspired.

It was enjoyable until it wasn't so I stopped. I'm not really a fan of these games.

[edit]
Forgot to add that there's good enough enemy variety and enemies are easy enough to work out based upon appearance and observing them for a bit. Enemy behavior is quite varied, I never felt like one enemy was just a reskin of an existing enemy e.g., the dogs have pack behavior, knight guys are more like a duel, etc.,

Things I forgot to add now that I've slept on it:

• Rewards you for acting like an adventurer. I was always moving slowly and taking in my surroundings, scanning horizontally and vertically, looking close near my feet in dark areas, etc.,
• I already praised the level design but it does an excellent job of placing things for you to see. You'll frequently see loot that is harder to get to, a hidden area, etc., if you're paying attention and look around.
• I also can't really think of any cheap deaths. Very few things happened that I wasn't responsible for.
• Action RPGs tend to be very sloppy about hitboxes/collision, so it's refreshing when they're precise
• The controls were also very responsive. The last From souls game I played was dork souls 3 and there was significant input delay that drove me mad. I'm not sure if it was an issue with the DS3 PC port, RPCS3 60 FPS patch, etc., but it was very smooth.
• The power curve is quite low. I was obviously much stronger when I stopped than at the start of the game, but the growth wasn't exponential. (This is good)
• Since armor is nearly dead slots, you have all the unique equipment fighting for 4 slots total. My item storage was full of weapons/shields I had no interest in.
• Other than the very poor 'HDR'(no tonemapping) as was common with every game in this era that causes blown out lighting, the graphics were pleasing.
• Rolling in heavy armor felt very chonky.

Can't really think of anything else so that's probably the end of my feedback.
Oh, and I was surprised at how short it is. I was closer to the end than I thought.

[Vaako]

Characters started going missing from the nexus without saying anything(I always exhaust all the dialogue when I return), guessing I somehow jumped passed a quest flag or something. I dunno.

buenos dias

There should really be more games with characters like the guy you free from the cage. The less naive ones will at least look online if the guy could become an issue. And malleable ******* get their save file ruined and cry online, because they didnt pay attention.

[rusty_shackleford]

I also liked that nearly all the bosses were "gimmick" fights. I disagree with calling them that, tho. To me a gimmick fight would be using a ballista to shoot a dragon then kill enemies that spawn and repeat until the dragon is dead.

e.g., the Adjudicator boss fight. After finally getting down to the bottom(I had no idea what was going on and wasn't a fan of him being able to hit me anywhere in the vertical arena), trying to hit him with my sword just bounced off him. Swapped to my secondary weapon to see if piercing might get thru the blubber, same deal. Started looking around the arena and at the boss while trying to stay to the side/back of him to not get hit and noticed the big metal piece sticking out of him and bleeding.

This is more interesting than a repeating boss attack pattern where it flies across the arena and you have to parry dodge parry parry at the precise window or die immediately

[rusty_shackleford]

The controls were also very responsive. The last From souls game I played was dork souls 3 and there was significant input delay that drove me mad. I'm not sure if it was an issue with the DS3 PC port, RPCS3 60 FPS patch, etc., but it was very smooth.

I tried dork souls 2 and the camera controls were driving me insane. I did not have this issue with demon's souls at all, it just worked and was very smooth/responsive.

[wndrbr]

The controls were also very responsive. The last From souls game I played was dork souls 3 and there was significant input delay that drove me mad. I'm not sure if it was an issue with the DS3 PC port, RPCS3 60 FPS patch, etc., but it was very smooth.

I tried dork souls 2 and the camera controls were driving me insane. I did not have this issue with demon's souls at all, it just worked and was very smooth/responsive.

dunno what you're talking about, Dark Souls 2's camera was very smooth.

[rusty_shackleford]

The controls were also very responsive. The last From souls game I played was dork souls 3 and there was significant input delay that drove me mad. I'm not sure if it was an issue with the DS3 PC port, RPCS3 60 FPS patch, etc., but it was very smooth.

I tried dork souls 2 and the camera controls were driving me insane. I did not have this issue with demon's souls at all, it just worked and was very smooth/responsive.

dunno what you're talking about, Dark Souls 2's camera was very smooth.

I'll try them back to back later to see if I can better articulate the issue

And before someone says it, I patched the deadzone.

[rusty_shackleford]

Dark Souls is probably the most D&D-like video game that is unintentionally so, while also not considered much like it at all. And I'm not even referring to the actual dungeon crawling itself.

It even has Vancian magic! Slots with charges that refresh when you rest.
Estus flasks? Why, they're nothing more than 4E's healing surges(@J1M)
Your currency being your XP is somewhat similar to D&D giving XP for gold

[J1M]

Dark Souls is probably the most D&D-like video game that is unintentionally so, while also not considered much like it at all. And I'm not even referring to the actual dungeon crawling itself.

It even has Vancian magic! Slots with charges that refresh when you rest.
Estus flasks? Why, they're nothing more than 4E's healing surges(@J1M)
Your currency being your XP is somewhat similar to D&D giving XP for gold

It seems that the average player enjoys being tricked into resource management. They are allergic to it otherwise. Some kind of casual gamer performance anxiety.

[rusty_shackleford]

Dark Souls is probably the most D&D-like video game that is unintentionally so, while also not considered much like it at all. And I'm not even referring to the actual dungeon crawling itself.

It even has Vancian magic! Slots with charges that refresh when you rest.
Estus flasks? Why, they're nothing more than 4E's healing surges(@J1M)
Your currency being your XP is somewhat similar to D&D giving XP for gold

also, what people call the "interconnected world"? It's a megadungeon. You were tricked, you spent the entire time dungeon crawling!

[maidenhaver]

Dark Souls is probably the most D&D-like video game that is unintentionally so, while also not considered much like it at all. And I'm not even referring to the actual dungeon crawling itself.

It even has Vancian magic! Slots with charges that refresh when you rest.
Estus flasks? Why, they're nothing more than 4E's healing surges(@J1M)
Your currency being your XP is somewhat similar to D&D giving XP for gold

also, what people call the "interconnected world"? It's a megadungeon. You were tricked, you spent the entire time dungeon crawling!

As God intended.

[Algol]

You guys are like me. You hate video games. A tear comes to my eye.

[Vlajdimir Ermenović]

dark souls level hall of fame:
-prison of hope
-sen's fortress
-frozen elyium loyce
-hunter's nightmare
-miquella's haligtree
-Krat zoo

dark souls boss hall of fame:
-old hero
-kittyman and fatso
-burnt ivory king
-ludwig
-godfrey

dark souls boss hall of gay:
-shiteaters (maneaters)
-ceaseless discharge
-ancient dragon
-rom, the ****** spider
-commander gayus

[stormvermin]

I also liked that nearly all the bosses were "gimmick" fights. I disagree with calling them that, tho. To me a gimmick fight would be using a ballista to shoot a dragon then kill enemies that spawn and repeat until the dragon is dead.

e.g., the Adjudicator boss fight. After finally getting down to the bottom(I had no idea what was going on and wasn't a fan of him being able to hit me anywhere in the vertical arena), trying to hit him with my sword just bounced off him. Swapped to my secondary weapon to see if piercing might get thru the blubber, same deal. Started looking around the arena and at the boss while trying to stay to the side/back of him to not get hit and noticed the big metal piece sticking out of him and bleeding.

This is more interesting than a repeating boss attack pattern where it flies across the arena and you have to parry dodge parry parry at the precise window or die immediately

Demon's only has imo 2 gimmick fights, Storm King and Dragon God, 3 if you include Old Monk but that's neither here nor there. Others such as the Armor Spider, Phalanx, Fool's Idol, Leechmonger, and Adjudicator are just more video game-y than what followed in later titles and posthumously received the "gimmick" label. Adjudicator in particular has been praised even years later as an extremely well executed boss and routinely places high in cool factor rankings.

The upgrade system seemed good with an asterisk that I could already see this is going to take grinding.

Meant to respond to this earlier. I like the upgrade system too and it sucks that every system since DS2 has basically been the same once From settled on the linear upgrade plus single gem and boss soul exchange instead of weapon ascension models. Probably wouldn't have tied the source for several of the pure stones to crystal lizards.

26724432522_3a1ff98b16_o.png

Truly autistic. I love it.

[wndrbr]

The silly upgrade system is probably the only thing I'm glad was streamlined with the subsequent games. Not a fan of going through the hoops to pick that glowing item guarded by a turbonigger champion monster only to find that it's some crappy upgrade material that doesn't fit my weapon's upgrade path.

[rusty_shackleford]

The Most Complex Mod Ever Created

Most interesting thing I took away from this is fromsoft still uses havok for its physics, and presumably, havok's fork of lua for scripting
Didn't even know Havok still existed, but apparently it does and is still used quite a bit

[edit]
From what I can tell, it's cross-compiling all the various Morrowind scripts to whatever ER's script language is. Probably has a bunch of adapters and ****, I dunno. Looks really complex! Seems like it would have been easier to mod ER combat into OpenMW.

[rusty_shackleford]

Crazy DARK SOULS MOD Let\u0027s Me Freeze Time! - DS1 Superhot Mod Funny Moments #1

[W1llus]

[W1llus]

Putrid mother has replaced Adyr seemingly. We have no clue what actually happened to Adyr just that there's a thousand year gap between 2023 and 2026. The mural does confirm that not only is the existence of the Putrid Mother is now wide spread and no longer heavily suppressed but also that some of the creatures from umbral are bleeding into axion and infamous enough to be depicted such as the not necromorph, floating eyeball thing, and weird large flower monster from the umbral gameplay showcase. Fun fact this is the first ever official depiction of Orius himself. Below are the murals from the first game.



Context for the 3 murals depicted. Top mural depicts Saint Latimers (hushed saint) sacrifice to sustain (light?) one of the beacons containing adyr. His head to this day is still in the tree also depicted just below him in Forsaken Fen where you fight his umbral necromanced corpse. The bottom left mural depicts a future judge cleric in mournstead. She's noticeably has a darker appearance with her spear having been wrapped in thorns and her white cloth having been replaced with black cloth. Judge clerics corruption began long before the rune of adyr came to mournstead due to umbrals heavy influence whittling away at everyone's sanity. Bottom right mural depicts judge cleric at her purest when she originally came to Mournstead being a revered figure who triumphed over Adyr.

[stormvermin]

@W1llus, the madlad actually pulled it off
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/ ... shing-deal

Lords of the Fallen II will no longer be launching as an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC.

In a note to investors, CI Games explained it has finalized a separation agreement with Epic Games that releases the studio from a publishing deal it agreed with the Fortnite maker in June 2024.

As explained by CI Games back in 2024, the agreement granted Epic the exclusive distribution rights to Lords of the Fallen II on PC for the entire product lifecycle.

It's unclear why the agreement has been scrapped. Game Developer has reached out to CI Games for comment.

Lords of the Fallen II is currently slated to launch at some point in 2026 on console and PC platforms. The original title debuted in 2023 and had topped 2.5 million sales worldwide as of March 20, 2026.

That milestone resulted in Lords of the Fallen officially recouping its $80.45 million budget (including development and marketing) earlier this year.

"Reaching break-even is a significant milestone, ensuring financial stability alongside the recent capital raise, but we know there’s more to achieve," said CI Games co-founder and CEO Marek Tyminski at the time.

"The lessons learned and community feedback gathered over the past 2.5 years have been invaluable, and they continue to guide the development of Lords of the Fallen II."

[sheet]

It's incredible that after 13+ years of Steam being stable and having a good UI, no other storefront can manage organizing their stores into something people can actually navigate, except maybe GOG.

I recently went back for shits and giggles, and PSN, EA, Ubisoft, Epic are all unusable pieces of ****. Battle.net also sucks, but not as bad.

[rusty_shackleford]

The goal of this game is to collect dark souls


https://shadowman.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Soul

[rusty_shackleford]

Should I play dork souls, lads?

[Vlajdimir Ermenović]

Should I play dork souls, lads?

Try it, but there's no gurantee you'll like it. It has aged poorly in some aspects.