>>3923521
>hear about this game receiving tons of praise
>buy it on xbox 360
>it's really good
>spend a month absolutely immersed in it
Playing ds1 as a noob was so good

>>3923521
>vast majority of armor sets cause you to fat roll
No, fat rolling is tied to your stats. You can backflip even while wearing Havels if your endurance is high enough.
>vast majority of weapons are dogshit if not carbon copies of superior weapons of the same category
Most weapons are perfectly decent, there are only a few weapons that are unintentionally bad. Sure, some are better than others, but that's always going to be the case.
>resistance as a stat
Fair.
>magic trivializes the entire game
Not really. It trivializes some parts, while making other sections even harder unless you are doing some sort of hybrid build. Any boss that doesn't give you room to breathe (like the Capra Demon for example) is going to be pretty miserable as a magic user. And of course magic is a limited resource, so while bosses get easier, long stretches of regular enemies can be difficult, especially at the beginning if you are new and don't know where to go or where the merchants are.
>second half is rushed garbage with shitty gimmick bosses
Nito and Seath are fine, and their areas are also reasonably good. Four kings is an attempt at an interesting boss that falls flat, but is not terrible. Bed of Chaos is garbage.

mobility does seem like it would be better in a setting with magic and ginormous things attacking you.

why did anon delete his posts? i think he raised a valid point that none of the games meaningfully iterate on each other.

>>3923620
Many weapons only seem bad because they are intended for a particular min-max niche that you won't notice if you aren't optimizing for a target level and playstyle. If you have extreme low strength, for example, most of your weapon choices are slash or piercing type. Weapons like the caestus and whip are your only options otherwise. Some weapons fill a gimmick niche more than a practical one.

>>3923521
Second half is slightly underwhelming, but the dlc makes up for that
>Vast majority of weapons are dogshit
git gud

I never even used magic in my playthrough, except for a few basic pyromancies. 27 str, 40 dex, the rest into stamina and hp, halberd, fap ring, wolf ring, and the heaviest armor I can wear without slow rolling
but I gotta admit I was cheesing it by end game. So much poise I could just stand in front of bosses and spam my attack and win just doing that, no magic needed
I always thought the way Dark Souls was hyped up as the hardest game ever made (and the constant comparison of "X is the Dark Souls of Y!") was a bunch of bullshit though. A bit punishing at times, but with some grinding and some practice any retard could beat it.

also what truly trivializes the game is learning how to parry

>>3923620
>Not really. It trivializes some parts, while making other sections even harder unless you are doing some sort of hybrid build.
fuckin' THANK YOU.
I've been saying this for years, and everyone just keeps saying the same few things about how magic is easy mode when it's abundantly obvious they've never actually tried it. let alone as a first playthrough.
It's always someone running past every enemy, or using normal weapons just to blast a few powerful nukes at a nearly stationary slow moving boss. No thought to the soul investment needed to actually unlock and properly use these spells, or what you could better use those souls for instead (like boosting health and carry weight to be practically untouchable with some good armor)

of all the playthroughs I've done, the easiest was my simple Knight run. Nothing but the Elite Knight armor, a quality longsword, and a knight's shield. The magic run I did shortly after that one was still harder.

I'll argue that it's definitely way OP in Demon's Souls, especially if you get the MP restoration ring (which one class starts with) but then they kind of did an overcorrection that wasn't fixed fully until Dark Souls 3. I've heard some call Magic underpowered in that game, but I felt like it finally fit in balance wise.

>>3925269
Agreed. If you're familiar with the game everything can be trivial. Simply giving a mage something to parry with solves quite a few problems. Or poise ring. Hornet ring and backstabs. Depends on what tools you're allowed for your "mage".

I liked how DS2 had lower starting stats and required more investment to carry even a longsword. It was easier to say fuck it imma go pure mage no shenanigans.

>>3925275
I hate to admit it since I'm an avid DS2 hater, but the early game leveling experience in that game felt way better than anything other in the series. Every level felt like it made a meaningful impact, and it really made you have to weigh which stats you actually wanted to pursue.
Also, I really like what it did with Attunement. I wish it had a more drastic effect on your spell uses so that having a 99 in Attunement could mean you basically never ran out even if you tried. (maybe even letting spells under a certain stat requirement threshold cast for free.)

Elden Ring is my favorite game, full stop, but it's also the worst in the series in this aspect. I never felt like gaining any levels really made a difference. And I always got level ups way too slowly for how large the world is, and how fast you can progress in it. It really fucks with the soft-caps and hard-caps in weird ways. You barely gain any FP until Mind 20. Only then does it actually start making a difference.

I swear I tried magic in every Souls game on a replay after having heard they're op, but they're all so slow and shit. I hated using them in every game.

>>3925284
The strongest spell in DS3 and Elden Ring is the one that literally turns your wand into a straight sword.

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>>3923521
>Best weapons aren't the ultra mega boss soul weapons upgraded with the rarest material but rather the mundane buy it from a shop early game starting weapons you upgrade with junk

Once you get a bit of experiance under your belt it's kind of depressing how little you pay attention to treasure and pick ups

Are souls games the latest fantasy universes to get mainstream attention?

I got lore videos recommended to me on youtube and that got me thinking

>>3925468
halberd is the best weapon in the entire series

>>3925065
The only boss you can parry in the entire game is Gwyn and you would only figure this out through pure luck or a guide. Dark Souls 1 does nothing to incentivize the player to learn how to parry and parrying is a feature that is only useful for PVP, difficult mobs such as black knights that can be entirely ignored to begin with, and killing specific NPC’s for their gear. There is nothing about parrying that would trivialize the game because it’s a feature that is easily ignored and unneeded for any progression.

>>3925484
>unneeded for any progression.
Midwit strikes again. What isn't unneeded

>>3925484
most normal enemies can be parried. In this game, it's the easiest to learn the timing. Once you do, it can be easier than dodging.
the other games in the series really go all in on dodging being the primary way to avoid damage, but Dark Souls was a bit different by making dodging sometimes a really bad move, either because it moves you away from the enemy, leaves you open to a followup if you do it wrong, leads you to roll off a ledge, or just takes too long.

>>3925284
Magic has an OP rep for 2 main reasons:
1. There are a number of sections where magic's range and partial-unblockability makes some enemies very easy to cheese.
2. A min-maxed sorcerer is one of the most accessible and easily-used glass cannon builds, able to take down bosses in just a few hits. This is notable in a game where most of the bosses feel like damage sponges on a normal playthrough, no matter what your build.

>>3925469
Just went on a lore dive for Dark Souls 1 on YouTube and can confirm there's some good deep dives on there

>>3925484
Unless you're playing a magic build, you need to parry to progress past the silver knights in Anor Londo, or the Darkwraiths in New Londo.

>>3923521
>vast majority of armor sets cause you to fat roll
This is only a problem for people who fall for the "rollslop" meme and think the game was intentionally designed around rolling to avoid everything. You can still beat the game, and in some places will have an easier time if you play a tankier build instead of dodge rolling through everything.
Poise is essential for builds that rely on blocking and is extremely useful for anyone using slow weapons so they can get a swing off without being staggered.

Armor also opens up more stat distributions. Having 60% damage mitigation against a type of damage is the same as having +60% more HP against that type meaning you don't have to put as many points into health, in fact you get double the benefit from putting points into endurance because not only do you get more stamina, but the bonus to carry weight boosts your survivalbility by allowing you to wear heavier armor without slowdown. You can easily get to Anor Londo with no points put into health while still face-tanking a bunch of shit just with good armor (like the elite knight's) and a good shield, freeing a bunch of souls to put into other things. The heaviest unblockable attacks are usually telegraphed enough that you can just circle-strafe or fat roll to avoid them.
PvP is the only thing that necessitates fast rolls because otherwise you will back backstabbed to death.

>>3923620
>Any boss that doesn't give you room to breathe (like the Capra Demon for example) is going to be pretty miserable as a magic user.
The thing is, most people who "play" Dark Souls do so with a walkthrough and build guide open the entire time (that's probably why they chose to use magic to begin with) and the capra demon is completely avoidable, which they probably will since their walkthrough is probably telling them to pick the master key as their starting item and take the back route into Blighttown instead of going the intended route through the depths. You only need to kill capra demon if you need pyromancies or the large ember or anything in the depths.

Very few people actually play through these games blind or with minimal help on their first playthrough these days. To be the fair the games aren't always intuitive so I don't fault people for looking some things up but the average rollslop consumer now has 50 wiki tabs open before starting the game for the first time.

>>3925780
>Capra Demon is completely avoidable
I guess, but not ideally in your first playthrough.
You have to go through Darkroot garden, find an easy-to-miss pathway, take an elevator up through the valley of drakes, all the way down to Blighttown and over to Quelagg. Each of those areas is a pretty big step up in difficulty from the Undead Parish.
(you could also use the Master Key to go right to Blighttown, but you really should guess that it's not the default way to go just from that)
And that's not even to mention that doing that skips almost two entire zones and a boss.

>>3923620
>>3925269
EXACTLY
I did a mage character blind way back in the day and anyone who will tell you it's easy mode is either a schizo or doesn't know half the shit requires you to complete DS1 side quests which aren't exactly the most transparent if you don't have a wiki open 24/7 and that's ontop of limiting yourself to a certain number of attacks per bonfire

>>3925791
I got called a smoothbrain by a youtube comment (because they can't say retard) when I said magic isn't actually easy mode.
His reasoning: Dark Bead is overpowered.
Apparently he just didn't know that you have to beat Fucking Artorias to get this "OP" spell (with four uses total, and practically useless on the other two DLC bosses that you'll need to fight after Artorias)
I kind of get it if you're talking about PvP, but when's the last time you saw one of those minmaxed "in it to win it" dudes ninja-flipping around with Logan's Catalyst, and Dusk's Crown? It's never, because they all go Giant-Dad with Zweihander.

also Vancian magic is a blight on gaming.

>>3923521
A game can have flaws and still be good.

>>3925758
Not even close.
Both of those enemy types are easily defeated using any number of approaches.

>>3925780
>Very few people actually play through these games blind or with minimal help on their first playthrough these days.
I actually see a surprising number of people who play totally blind. There was a weird culture about it for Dark Souls, even to the point of there being a meme about "kill the dogs first" a cryptic hint specifically referencing the Capra fight. I suspect the average guide-using player probably does not skip Capra, even if they get the Master Key. The Large Ember is in the Depths, even if people skip Blighttown with the Master Key they probably want the ember, and the only legitimate way in is through Capra.
There was a tradition of skipping Blighttown because it wasn't just cramped and difficult, but the original console versions of the game had severe framerate issues in the swamp (xbox was worse than ps3 iirc).
>>3925065
Frankly, backstab is more exploitable. Parry, even when you're good at it, at least carries inherent risk of fucking up and taking damage.
>>3925827
>also Vancian magic is a blight on gaming.
You deserve to be called a smoothbrain for that comment, though.

>>3925927
>Frankly, backstab is more exploitable. Parry, even when you're good at it, at least carries inherent risk of fucking up and taking damage.
As counterpoints, parrying is good at narrow spaces like on bridges and ledges against snake men and silver knights. It can be faster to pull off and grants invincibility which is beneficial against multiple opponents.

Most importantly some versatility is more fun than always circling for backstabs.

One reason I didn't have as much fun with DS2 was that I couldn't pull off parries as consistently, so the game was about as difficult but less "flashy"

>>3925930
>Most importantly some versatility is more fun than always circling for backstabs.
which is why I generally don't use either mechanic much. Parrying feels awesome to do every so often and certainly it's hard to resist when Darkwraiths do that charging attack. But essentially every single build parries and backstabs the exact same way. Maybe with a parrying shield you have a few extra frames and a fastroll build will have an easier time maneuvering for the backstab but none of the other aspects of your weapon or build matter. Always felt kind of lame to me that this game with such a rich variety of weapons with different hitboxes and movesets all just become irrelevant.

>>3925974
>But essentially every single build parries and backstabs the exact same way.
Eh you can always go magic, greatshield, twohand a weapon, whip, bow, dual wield

>>3925993
Point is that backstab works the same way no matter the build.
>magic
Circle strafe and R1 with magic/enchanted dagger
>greatshield
Circle strafe and R1
>2-handed weapon
Circle strafe and R1
>whip, bow
Cannot backstab with these weapons, so yeah if these are exceptions. But only exceptions because the backstab mechanic is literally disabled for these builds.
>dual wield
Circle strafe and R1
Very impractical build, btw. Just reinforces the point that you can succeed with a dual-wield build by just backstabbing almost everything and never using the left-hand weapon for anything and it won't feel much different than a normal build.

A better alternative, if you want to have fun, is to just avoid using backstabs.

>>3926042
You dropped parries out of your point, so I question your honesty.

By magic I meant using sorcery, pyros, miracles, not dagger

And without a shield circling enemies is riskier

>>3926049
>You dropped parries out of your point, so I question your honesty.
Just trying to make the point clearer because you really don't seem to get what I'm saying and are basically arguing past me. I said "every build parries and backstabs the same way," when I should have said "every build that can parry and backstab, parries and backstabs the same way"

There are over 100 unique weapons in the game.
NOT counting catalysts
NOT counting pyro flames
NOT counting talismans
NOT counting bows, crossbows or whips.

Each weapon has different properties. Different animations, different hitboxes, different recovery periods, different stamina costs, different poise and stamina damage, different reflection properties, and so on.

Almost NONE of that matters with backstab and riposte. The timing is all identical, irrespective of the weapon. The knockdown effects are identical. The only real difference is the amount of damage dlivered (and even that is a simpler calculation than usual). The only other notable difference is that the blunt weapons and huge swords do that double-hit animation instead of the standard backstab, which basically only matters when the initial hit is strong enough to kill, so you don't get overkill credit.

>>3925777
The problem is that abusing high poise through heavier armor sets is a strategy that can only be done with reasonable effectiveness in the later portion of the game due to needing very high vitality to even survive. It’s not intuitively communicated to the player that this is even an approach that can work with investment, and most players beginning the game with knight or warrior will doff their armor so they can dodge easier. Dark Souls 1 is a much slower game (in terms of animations) compared to subsequent entries in the series, and most bosses have slow and easily readable attacks that heavily encourage the player to dodge.

>>3926059
>I said "every build parries and backstabs the same way," when I should have said "every build that can parry and backstab, parries and backstabs the same way"
Yes, you should have made better arguments in the first place
>Always felt kind of lame to me that this game with such a rich variety of weapons with different hitboxes and movesets all just become irrelevant.
*when backstabbing

>>3925927
>>also Vancian magic is a blight on gaming.
>You deserve to be called a smoothbrain for that comment, though.
Vancian magic was created so that magic could be powerful, while still not being too overpowered in a tabletop roleplaying setting. It feeling good is wholly dependent on whether the player has a good DM who can modulate encounters in real time to fit what the party has available, and potentially even engineer scenarios where all spells are useful. Watching your wizard prepare five sleep spells, then throwing only enemies who are immune to sleep is a common example.
There's also the aspect that damage is the most important thing to a fight, and vancian magic means that if you want to have more utility, that necessarily means you have less damage output.

I think the magic meter was the perfect solution for an era where computers can calculate and remember numbers far better than a guy at a table with a Mtn Dew stained character sheet and a blunt pencil.
If you find the need for a utility spell, then it's an easy choice to sacrifice some of your potential damage output for something more situational.
I always thought that the fantasy for a Wizard is being the intelligent one in the group, always prepared with the perfect tool for what you need, and being so smart that you can bend reality to your will through study and practice.
What happens most of the time is that you don't want to take a spell that you don't know you'll need, so you just take your old reliables, typically damage spells.

This isn't entirely about Dark Souls, but it's not too far off. When's the last time you used Hide, or Cast Light aside from just not having enough casts of the blue "pew-pews" to fill out all of your attunement slots. I use spells like that very regularly in Elden Ring though.

>>3925282
Yeah
DS2, your early levels matter so much. You'll put points into stats you don't want long term, because they really do matter a lot now, and then pushing hard scaling almost always matters less than opening up your options. I think DS2 has the best stats/leveling in the series.
Elden Ring, the weird scaling most stats have, where 1-20 does almost nothing, 20-40 is all of your scaling, 40-60 is only once you're later, and above 60 is pointless unless you're using one of the two weapons in the game with weird scaling that come online only in NG+, is bizarre, amd couples with the fact that like 80% of Elden Ring playthroughs start with a 2 hour shit run to go get your stuff, makes the game feel really stilted in a weird way. Elden Ring feels like you aren't even really playing the game for like, 3 hours on a fresh file, because you're shopping for a build first.

Both also have the issue of your level tax, but 2, your level tax can be paid a few ways, either Adp or Att for better rolls, more health or more armor for more survivability, or more options to handle different scenarios better, while Elden Ring just says "fuck you, put 50 points in Vigor or fuck off".
I like all these games, but, leveling in DS2 is great. Leveling in Elden Ring sucks.
Bloodborne is probably worse in that regard, but Bloodborne is honestly barely an rpg so it might bot even be an appropriate comparison.

>>3926485
Eeeeeh.
Vancian magic makes spells more interesting.
Blue bar leads to situations like Dark Souls 3, where Dark Orb and Chaos Bed Vestiges are effectively the only pyromancies. Maybe the rock if you're trying to make Pyro work against Midir. You just aren't using your bar to cast anything else. You look at the variety of magic missiles, look for the one with the best ratio of juice to damage that doesn't have ass behaviors, and cast that one.
Versus, if CBV is a slotted spell with two casts, it can be good, but not completely dominate casting. It means slots beyond 3 actually matter. A lot, actually.
Slots mean less good spells are actually going to be experimented with sometimes. You want more niche use case spells, and will use some of your less desirable spells, because you have 6 slots, 3 good spells, and the rest are still there.
Elden Ring has, what, like 120ish spells? Not counting weapon arts that are basically spells, actual spells, cast through a talisman or staff.
Of those, how many have you actually used? Casting it once or twice at some test subject to see what it does or test the damage against another doesn't count, I mean, picked it from the list, and put it on your character, with an intent to use it, and used it. Is it under 40? Is it under 20?
How many spells completely replace another; the moment you get this one you never ever cast the other one again? Do you even bother getting all the memory stones, or do you get the like, 3, or maybe 5 if you're casting multi-slot spells, and just forget about the rest?
That's the problem with blue bar. It makes magic selection way, way more linear. There are nowhere near as many lateral decisions to make, about what to put in your 5th, 6th, 7th slot. You WILL be using these spells, but you already have your "good" spells slotted. So, what do you need, what do you want? What actually goes into your 7th spell slot? Do you really want seven slots of magic missiles?

>>3930817
Exactly. In practice, on average, the per-cast opportunity costs are more interesting in a vancian system. The emphasis on preparation does have pros and cons (eg you may not bother to memorize a utility spell if your slots are constrained), but the problem with the mana system is that there are effectively no constraints at all except in scenarios where a low-mana condition is likely to occur. Before that, all you really have is a vague incentive to conserve mana, just in case.
>What happens most of the time is that you don't want to take a spell that you don't know you'll need, so you just take your old reliables, typically damage spells.
This is an issue, but in Vancian Dark Souls this is limited by the "spell" items themselves (I don't know the term for them). That is, unlike D&D where once you have "learned" a spell from a scroll, you can memorize it as many times as you have slots for that spell level, in Dark Souls you can only attune as many copies of a given spell as you have acquired. So if you have looted only Fireball, you can only attune one slot's worth of Fireball charges. This forces you to find something else for your other attunement slots.

>>3926485
>Vancian magic was created so that magic could be powerful, while still not being too overpowered in a tabletop roleplaying setting.
You're intentionally skipping over far too much historical context surrounding "game design" (such as it was) in those days, as well as the actual comments by Gygax et al. about their decisions which have been exhaustively documented over the decades.
And the things you're intentionally ignoring and evading addressing say everything about your motives and about you as a person.
Stop trying to manipulate conversations with lies and misinformation and falsehoods. Fucking stop it.

>>3930817
I don't know about you, but I was always changing around my spell loadout to get the best bang for my blue-bar.
In Elden Ring at least, it takes after Dark Souls 2 where spells are more linear in how the more damaging ones take longer to cast than the lower ones. So you can get off a lot more attack opportunities with Glintstone Pebble. The lower cost spells also have a far better ratio of damage to FP cost. It's a decision of how much you trust yourself to not need all those Red Flasks, or how quickly you can end the fight before you need them.

>>3930995
ok first. calm down.
second, I gave my best guess in a good faith way for why D&D chose to implement it's magic system like that based on what I know about the appeal of magic users for the general population. I think in a tabletop setting, it works beautifully, but once you remove the human element of the other players with their own motivations and strategies, it kinda falls apart.
and third, this is a discussion on video games, and more specifically Dark Souls. I just want to make my case for why a blue bar makes more sense for a computer game than a set amount of casts.

Has anyone else enjoyed selecting a class and sticking with the starter equipment, or at least close to it? I'm playing a hunter and it has rekindled my love for the game. Focusing on archery gives a new perspective (literally, first person aiming).

It's so easy to get immersed and slip into roleplaying in dark souls, I love it.

>>3930995
>intentionally
I doubt it. Comes across more as just a standard gamer who doesn't think beyond his personal experience

>>3926485
>This isn't entirely about Dark Souls, but it's not too far off. When's the last time you used Hide, or Cast Light aside from just not having enough casts of the blue "pew-pews"
Both are good for a thief and require little investment. Keeps hands free in tomb of the giants.

The question is did Dark Souls have enough consideration for lighting and stealth? Not really. Stealth opportunities mostly happen when backtracking through linearly designed levels and encounters. Some odd exceptions, like getting a drop on a black knight or something.

Because they're told it's good because it's bad, the whole dark souls dilemma especially with the quality of the game itself, the shittiness is just treated like difficulty and that you should get good this game could be literally shit but there's such a culture around it people just assume it's good. The entire enjoyment and fanbase of dark souls is a meme.

The painting level is gorgeous, but damn is it a difficulty spike. Meant for endgame I suppose.