BLOODBORNE given Feb '15 Euro/NA release date, deemed worthy of own thread by ilxor

Oh, man, poise: those brain suckers were the worst.

I'm definitely not good at parrying!

For the sackboys, my method has been pretty straightforward. During their first phase, they're pretty easy to dodge and knock down with a charged attack (though not strictly necessary). Then, when they're charging up their frenzy mode, you have enough time to get behind them for another charge attack + visceral, at which point they're either dead or just have a sliver of health.

i'm at the jailers now too. may get distracted by something else and quit but i'm enjoying this latest playthrough; it's been long enough that i've forgotten most of what happens!

lol, I'm not joking when I say that for most of the past couple of weeks I literally forgot I finished this game I put dozens of hours into. But that's me, not the game.

get behind them for another charge attack + visceral

Bloodborne backstabs, very advanced!

Josh, when is your Sekiro playthrough happening

gonna be a few months, at least.

Killed:

- Caarl
- Djura

Found/bought:

- Ludwig's Holy Blade
- Rifle Spear

I guess it's onto the Forbidden Woods next?

Ludwig's Holy Blade

I could not find or figure out how best to use any weapon better than this one. Worth every blood penny.

Forbidden Woods is one of the toughest and most atmospheric parts of the main game, iirc. Watch your step.

Blimey you meant that literally!

I got what felt like pretty far and even managed to put down the first octodad I saw without too much trouble, and I'm pretty sure I opened up a shortcut. Problem was, I seem to have gotten complacent against subsequent octodads, and I forgot where that shortcut was.

There's an optional something or another you can get in that area that I didn't learn/read about until very late in the game, so I went back all OP and basically had to kill everything all over again just to find what I missed, since I kept getting lost.

Yeah I'm probably going to watch a walkthrough before playing this level again.

No kidding. I was following a guide and watched a few walkthroughs to get nearly everything and I still kept getting lost. I don't think I could easily get back to the secret places very easily, either.

OTOH I beat the Shadow on my second attempt, and actually got close to it on my first.

There's a weird element to some of these games, where the secret is just to absolutely demolish something so fast before it does the thing - enters a new phase, uses a specific power, etc. - but in some ways that makes me feel like I'm missing out on a piece of the game design. Like, optional bosses and areas, why would you not opt? If the point was not to play something, why play at all?

Well, an overriding strategy for a lot of enemies is to quickstep/dodge/roll behind them and whale away/charge attack, no?

Anyway, I've gotten decent at parry attacks now, thanks to the advice herein! I thought I had to shoot mere frames before I was hit, which obviously led to a lot of heartache -- instead, shooting right after I see their attack animations start has been much more reliable.

Yeah, I still didn't do it as often as I should have, but it's easier to do than it first seems.

Attacking the enemy's butt is generally always the best rule, with a couple of exceptions. Fast enemies, for example, or a couple with inexplicably huge hit boxes. And humanoid enemies, which/who can be parried.

Oh, and I should say while I didn't delve into the chalice dungeons much at all, they're probably more fun and beneficial earlier in the game than later. I'm sure there are some difficult bosses down there, but the early ones I more or less demolished by the time I got down to them, and the rewards throughout were pretty paltry or of little use by then.

Byrgenwerth done! It's a short level so I didn't need to resort to guides much aside from the mini boss and the big boss, and I didn't need to cheese either of them (though reading Ron's attack type and weakness definitely expedited the win).

I futzed a little in Yahargul but seeing the enemies respawn made me realize that the game has changed.

I pretty rage-quit against Marty Lang, mostly because I'd run through my entire inventory of blood juice. I tried to do some leveling (I'm at 68 when I've read in some places 70 makes more sense) in Yahar'gul, but got pwned by a brick troll of all things (I know it's getting buffed but I probably need to revisit my strategy against them).

Cosmic Spider fight I only finally won by doing the *opposite* of a lot of the advice, which said to kill the baby spiders first. I fared better just going straight for the big guy after luring them away.

The brick trolls iirc are among the easier big enemies to parry. Martyr Logarius is the one on the roof, right? First, he's optional, so you can always come back later. Second, he was probably the hardest boss fight, or up there, but he *also* can be parried relatively easy. However, as I remember it he took almost all of my blood vials to kill, and adding insult to injury there's no way to even get to him without taking a little bit of guaranteed damage at least twice, once getting up that latter while an asshole spits darts at you and the other dropping off the other roof to get to the other ladder to get to him. Oh, and yeah, there's no way out without warping, which is its own troll move.

But yeah, go back to Roof Boss when you're stronger. Three phases, I think. The first favors hit and run tactics plus parries, the faster second one mostly favors parries, the third ... there's a magic sword involved that you have to either shoot or hit, I think, to limit one of his more annoying attacks.

Yeah, Marty is the jerk on the rooftop, and getting him is definitely annoying. I take out the spitballer on my way there, and *think* that I was able to reduce the drop damage once by landing on one of the wall spikes, but seeing as I actually fell off the wall once before, am willing to pay the health tax.

I think that I have a decent grasp of the his first phase, but I've been trying to replicate a visceral cheese, to no avail, although I do have a rune that lets me regain health for visceral attacks, which would mitigate my current vial crunch. I got the storm of swords phase.

https://bimmydraws.tumblr.com/post/639044491113873408/fun-outfit-idea

The Healing Church believes that any inquiries into blood ministrations will only further divide Yharnam: the city has been devastated by The Hunt, and we should be looking for unity and healing, not the divisive killing of the Old Ones and their spawn.

— Tyler Dinucci (@TylerDinucci) January 11, 2021

Some background: Rob, a Playstation Youtuber who is famously known for not being good at skillful games, has been stuck in Old Yarnham since the game came out, and so his cohosts, one of whom is hilariously overleveled, decided to help him beat it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b0BZJu-9ew

So I rage quit this for I few months? But I picked it up again and Yahargul some more after watching a stream; got to the One Reborn and on my third time I got it down to an inch of health before it puked on and killed me. But I punted around in Upper Cathedral Ward and to grind another level up, and I fortified my Tonitrus and was able to take OR down in relatively short order.

Marty Loggans -- DEAD! I leveled up 4 times since the first time I fought him, mostly prioritizing skill, but otherwise I'm not sure how I had such an easier go when I put him down. I did manage several visceral attacks, and I read about how to dodge his airborne attacks.

Sounds familiar. I think he was easily the most frustrating boss, but of course these games are great at telling you when you're not ready for something. Making him optional and kind of hard to get to was certainly one clue.

Hah, killed Amygdala in one go! Once I figured out how to get directly behind it, it was just a matter of swinging and its tail.

Love to see it, gg Leee. Btw this might contain a few boss spoilers for you if you're not done yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TuqsXZhYWo

This game really doesn't help you does it? O find it frustrating that I had to go online to find out how to use the UI to equip a weapon after I'd been killed by the first werewolf 20 times

So I've decided if I'm going to play a Soulslike, it's going to be this one. I found Dark Souls 3 as beautiful and absorbing as I did grimly frustrating. I didn't really get far in it at all. I need a feeling of purpose, of progress, and the annoying things about these games is that they wilfully explain very very little to you, and so the urge to continue with them really depends on how much you enjoy doing the same thing over and over again until you get it exactly right. But yes, despite still being basically at the beginning I'm kind of enjoying this.

I think I may fall into the "'Bloodborne' is the best one" camp. Certainly its enemies and mythology and world building are much more novel and interesting than "Sekiro" (so far). I liked "DS3" a lot, though, too.

I find the impenetrability of the interface (the lack of tutorial) comforting in a nostalgic way, like 8-bit graphics emulation in other games. I don't know whether it is by design or by accident or a combination of both but I love this aspect of From games and games inspired by them

Yeah but those 8Bit/16Bit games usually came with some sort of small manual telling you a bit about the controls and the UI. I was so pissed off about that werewolf decking me over and over again - "Surely this game can't be THAT hard?". I knew I'd picked up a weapon, but learning how to actually equip these just wasn't intuitive in the least (you have four squares, the leftmost two are for your right hand, the rightmost for your right, but you're just meant to work that out yourself).

I think there's a controls diagram in the settings? Or if not, Google is your friend with these games. I'd like to think that collective puzzle-solving aspect is part of the design. Or at least I appreciate that they keep immersion-breaking in-game tips & tutorials to a minimum.

i don't have online subscription. will that be a significant problem or obstacle?

Not in this game I don't think. As long as you can google or follow a walkthrough/guide you'll do fine. Conversely, and to your point, in my experience *none* of these games are playable without a guide, and insult to injury if you do the wrong thing early that could affect your game hours later. It's one thing to require you to fight certain enemies again and again, but I'll be damned if I play the entire game again and again just to get different endings, different NPC interactions, discover new stuff, etc. That's a job for the obsessives that write the guides that make it easier for people like me.

And just to be clear, all the inscrutable NPC side quests are optional, it doesn't really matter if you complete them or ignore them entirely. But yeah, if you want to do it all in one playthrough, you definitely need to use a wiki.

Grrr... I'm only in Central Yharnam and there's a bit where a lot of zombie men are standing round a fire. I can't seem to kill them all. What I'm finding especially annoying is that even if I'm locked on to someone, my character will often just swing (or shoot) in a completely different direction

That's at the start, right? Lure them out one at a time by hitting them with a pebble.

If the lock-on is switching when you don't want it to, maybe go into settings and try turning off 'Auto-Target'?

Also sometimes with groups it's better to not lock on at all, once you get used to aiming swings without it.

But step #1 is definitely to lure out one at a time, and also you can just run past them all if you just need to get to the next area. :)

It would be nice if I had some pebbles of course. Every time I die I have fewer and fewer items at my disposal.

Really am getting tired of doing the same thing over and over and over again

The hardest part of any of these games is the beginning, when you don't have much in the way of resources and you haven't got the feel of things yet, and the hardest From Software game is always the first one you play.

You don't necessarily need pebbles, just attract one enemy's attention, and lure them back into a safe area where you've already killed the enemies. And it should be easier once you learn their placement in a given area, and also their attacks so that you can dodge/wait until they're done swinging/etc. It can be helpful to move into their range to trigger an attack and then back out of it, then attack when they're done, etc. Or, interrupt them right away if you can (though bigger enemies may not be able to be interrupted).

I haven't played BB for awhile, but even though it rewards aggression and swinging into enemies to get your hp back after getting hit, sometimes it's better not to get hit at all. You can do it!

(what weapons did you choose btw?)

The big saw (cleaver?) And the blunderbuss

I'm still stuck at this bonfire. I'm trying to lure them but there's a guy with a gun who shoots me when I try to lure out the strays. Oh and a big wolf who is a pain too

I just don't understand why dude will just randomly turn the opposite direction when I'm attacking an enemy. I haven't got the lock on

Solid, if you were using the cane I would suggest a different one for the first time through.

Oh yeah the dogs are always the worst in these games, at least in BB you can shoot them to knock them out of the way.

xp

Oh, are you moving the left trigger unintentionally? That'll always dictate the direction of your attacks I think.

Also more often than not when I try to lure one guy out I get three chasing me and then I'm doomed