BLOODBORNE Spoiler Thread (read OP)

This "concern trolling trolling" is getting really fucking annoying. I hate whoever made people aware of the "concern trolling" term recently. Every single time someone express legitimate criticism and concern about some game people start with this bullshit.

People got concerned about the amount of weapons, why is this so offensive to you? Not every concern is fake in order to troll your favorite videogame, fuck this shit.

The annoyance and jokes come from the fact that people read one thing in the OP and then without checking the thread, posted "6 weapons?!?!"

It happened over and over and over again for many, many pages on the impressions thread. There was a dozen other things to talk about but instead there was constant drive-by posting about that one piece of info that as it turns out was very wrong to begin with. and as such, people who were actually reading the thread ended up having to reply multiple times pointing out how silly it is to think there are 6 weapons when we've seen at least 8 already in promo stuff.

That's why it's turned into a joke now.
 
my body is weakening...
 
big BF fan not hard to understand really

the horror aspect of the souls games always put me off, not to mention the fact that im a newcomer to an intimidating series

Well we welcome you with open arms if you decide to try it. The series although strange to people from the outside really does offer a lot of value to newcomers.

The games being hard is something I really want to disagree with generally.

Hard, hardcore, impossible, L337... these are horrid terms in describing what is clearly a different style of game design. I will not say the games are not hard. But I will say that if you give it a fair shake, and actually spend some time (more then a few hours) you will be pleasantly surprised at the depth of the gameplay and how much you as a player adapt to this clearly unique and different style of game than the current crop of games out there.

I am going to cast a generalized net out with this next statement: Souls games are not hard and are not only for the hardcore.

Souls games require patience and trial and error combined with time spent playing to allow for the player to adapt to a different and perhaps new way to deal with playing games. Seriously if you are even a little bit interested then try the game. If the environment and stylings of this game do not appeal to you that is one thing, but do not allow the combat, or difficulty that so many people like to slap on this series as a reason not to give it a fair shake.
 
Because anyone should have realized that there can't be just 6 weapons.

This isn't even higher level thinking shit.

I can't speak for everyone, but personally I didn't think it would be 6 weapons only, especially because I had no idea how long the game was, all I knew was that they found 6 weapons in 40 hours, enemies didn't drop weapons and we already had confirmation of lower weapon count because of the more unique weapons.

It's not that big of a leap to assume we'd have even less weapons than I was expecting.

I was actually just directly comparing 40 hours of Bloodborne to my first 40 hours of Dark Souls, which was roughly half of my first playthrough.

Now I know that not only the estimated time is around 45 hours, but also that people have finished the game with 14 weapons on their first blind playthrough, without having any wikis or forums to consult, so there are certainly hidden/covenant weapons in the game, and we might also have boss weapons, so it's all fine, and the Edge guys were just pretty bad at getting new weapons.

But when you think about it, even 14 hours for the whole game (so, comparatively, 7 for half the game instead of 6 for what I thought was half the game) isn't really that much.

If I was just concern trolling why wouldn't I jump to the 45 hour thing then? That's because I'm not concern trolling and I don't care how long the game is, since it's a highly replayable kind of game, as long as we have varied areas, I'm not concerned about the duration at all.

I even defended the series' duration when someone said in the other thread "if you beat Demon's in less than 40 hours on your first playthrough, congratulations", for which I (and many more) replied to with "thanks".

I don't remember Dark Souls 2 downgrade talk getting shut down. We had a huge thread on it. It was pretty well documented.

And weapon concerns and loading time concerns are two very different things.

It wasn't shut down exactly because we had dedicated threads on it. Actually, even on those threads there were a few people going in just to shit on the concerns, saying like "I DON'T PLAY GRAPHICS, WHY DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT THE GAME INSTEAD?" or some stupidity like that. I'm sure you'll remember.

The annoyance and jokes come from the fact that people read one thing in the OP and then without checking the thread, posted "6 weapons?!?!"

It happened over and over and over again for many, many pages on the impressions thread. There was a dozen other things to talk about but instead there was constant drive-by posting about that one piece of info that as it turns out was very wrong to begin with. and as such, people who were actually reading the thread ended up having to reply multiple times pointing out how silly it is to think there are 6 weapons when we've seen at least 8 already in promo stuff.

That's why it's turned into a joke now.

That is indeed more reasonable, as drive by posts from people who didn't read the thread are far more common than they should be, on every subject. I'm convinced.
 
To your first point, I disagree. Infamous' lack of mission variety was awful and made for a complete bore of a game.

Ugh, that's totally unfair to the main missions. People like to pretend it didn't have good mission design. It really did, it just didn't have enough side mission variety.
 
I stand corrected the Dark souls 2 embargo ended on the day of release.

RG0BS1U.gif
 
how hard is it on newcomers, wasnt interested in the previous games as i listed.

As a newcomer, you'll find it punishing. But you gotta stick with it and it'll reward you.

It was a silly move asking that question in a hype filled Bloodborne thread. The answers you get here are completely bias. If you like shooters, then go for Hardline.
 
It is an amazing design decision to do this. I find it extremely appealing.

Personally I wish they would
do something with the sheath, like use it as a shield. We already know there are shields in this game so it's not committing some cardinal hardcore sin
. Other than that, it's amazing how many people want to use a weapon that have been quite overused in the last two souls game =p
 
Not to mention all the 'day before release embargo' nonsense that'll be the next likely round of 'issues' gripping the community.

Anyway, there's probably better threads to speak of the validity of 'concern' discussion and the criticism of it.

_________________________________________

So what have we learned lore-wise thus far?

I was able to catch the bit where
Alfred
mentioned that they hunt something different than beasts as part of the
Church of Healing
. The building of said church seems to be named
Byrgenwerth
, which is also the building that the
giant spider is mounted
on according to a document the player finds. The building also seems to act as an archive of sorts.

What is it that they hunt? Was there anything else we've learned?

Edit: Pic of
Alfred
dialogue courtesy of gamefaqs and Reddit: http://i.imgur.com/VdYYmdo.jpg, http://i.imgur.com/Y8zIbVf.jpg
 
Not to mention all the 'day before release embargo' nonsense that'll be the next likely round of 'issues' gripping the community.

Anyway, there's probably better threads to speak of the validity of 'concern' discussion and the criticism of it.

_________________________________________

So what have we learned lore-wise thus far.
Alistair
mentioned that they hunt something different than beasts as part of some church. The building of said church seems to be named
Byrgenworth
, which is also the building that the
giant spider is mounted
on.

What was the name of his group and what they hunted? Was there anything else we've learned?

Wow I missed all of this.
I wonder if those are new covenants. Giant spider covenant leader!
 
Not to mention all the 'day before release embargo' nonsense that'll be the next likely round of 'issues' gripping the community.

Anyway, there's probably better threads to speak of the validity of 'concern' discussion and the criticism of it.

_________________________________________

So what have we learned lore-wise thus far.
Alistair
mentioned that they hunt something different than beasts as part of some church. The building of said church seems to be named
Byrgenworth
, which is also the building that the
giant spider is mounted
on.

What was the name of his group and what they hunted? Was there anything else we've learned?

You are missing key points:

There are more than one
bad ass top hat design
and that leveling is done by
NeoGAFS new resident Waifu!

On a serious note. I appreciate your post, as I have learned something new. I am a lore fanatic and this is good stuff.
 
You are missing key points:

There are more than one
bad ass top hat design
and that leveling is done by
NeoGAFS new resident Waifu!

On a serious note. I appreciate your post, as I have learned something new. I am a lore fanatic and this is good stuff.

I actually had the
top hat
procurement get interrupted by an ad ;_; Didn't get to witness the glory of it.

Probably missed some valuable lore in the item description too.
 
I don't think the embargo indicates anything. If Dark Souls II managed to be the better reviewed title of the three Souls games, anything they put out will be GOTY, even if it sucks.

I see some people criticizing games journalists for not giving the Souls series enough credit, but if anything, they're too forgiving when it comes to the series.
 
I don't think the embargo indicates anything. If Dark Souls II managed to be the better reviewed title of the three Souls games, anything they put out will be GOTY, even if it sucks.

I see some people criticizing games journalists for not giving the Souls series enough credit, but if anything, they're too forgiving when it comes to the series.

I actually have to agree with this. But this is more of an issue with gaming journalism in general. When niche games come out, everyone focuses on the great design decisions and usually forgive or ignore glaring flaws because (I am speculating here) no one wants negativity to bring down such a niche title or series. Also it could just come down to being shitty journalism in general that we have all come to accept from gaming outlets.
 
I don't think the embargo indicates anything. If Dark Souls II managed to be the better reviewed title of the three Souls games, anything they put out will be GOTY, even if it sucks.

I see some people criticizing games journalists for not giving the Souls series enough credit, but if anything, they're too forgiving when it comes to the series.

Souls series are the greatest games of all time. No sarcasm, that is just what i believe.
 
Well we welcome you with open arms if you decide to try it. The series although strange to people from the outside really does offer a lot of value to newcomers.

The games being hard is something I really want to disagree with generally.

Hard, hardcore, impossible, L337... these are horrid terms in describing what is clearly a different style of game design. I will not say the games are not hard. But I will say that if you give it a fair shake, and actually spend some time (more then a few hours) you will be pleasantly surprised at the depth of the gameplay and how much you as a player adapt to this clearly unique and different style of game than the current crop of games out there.

I am going to cast a generalized net out with this next statement: Souls games are not hard and are not only for the hardcore.

Souls games require patience and trial and error combined with time spent playing to allow for the player to adapt to a different and perhaps new way to deal with playing games. Seriously if you are even a little bit interested then try the game. If the environment and stylings of this game do not appeal to you that is one thing, but do not allow the combat, or difficulty that so many people like to slap on this series as a reason not to give it a fair shake.

exactly the statement i was looking for thanks for the response =D the main thing that sways me away from the games is the lack of direction, do i just experiment with different passages in order to find the proper area for my level? or is there some sort of direction that the game gives you, even a hint?
 
I don't think the embargo indicates anything. If Dark Souls II managed to be the better reviewed title of the three Souls games, anything they put out will be GOTY, even if it sucks.

I see some people criticizing games journalists for not giving the Souls series enough credit, but if anything, they're too forgiving when it comes to the series.

I do wonder if Bloodborne will be the one where they finally start taking serious points off for performance issues like bugs, glitches, framerate, loading, camera problems, etc. All of which were present in previous games but never factored into the final verdict much.

Oracle pls respond.

He is already dead.
 
I started with Dark souls 2 , for me there's either impossible or rewarding hard if that makes sense? Which DS 2 was rewarding hard.

I managed to beat Demon's Souls (with the help of some friends towards the end) but never finished Dark Souls 1 despite putting in 60 hours, I only got to Anor Londo. It was just too difficult for me despite being a veteran of the series. Put in 10 hours of Dark Souls 2 and lost interest but Bloodborne has reignited my passion for the games.

That said I do think the games fall more on the side of "reward" than "impossible", though YMMV
 
I actually have to agree with this. But this is more of an issue with gaming journalism in general. When niche games come out, everyone focuses on the great design decisions and usually forgive or ignore glaring flaws because (I am speculating here) no one wants negativity to bring down such a niche title or series. Also it could just come down to being shitty journalism in general that we have all come to accept from gaming outlets.

Indeed.

There's also the opposite, though. Games like Nier got panned (fairly, actually) for its flaws, and lowish scores that didn't forgive those flaws because of the fantastic story, characters and music, but then you get your AAA cinematic crap with a shit story and it gets praised for its narrative, ten outta ten.

It is changing though, reviewers have been far more strict when it comes to scores at least in the past couple of years. I do think that Uncharted 3 had no hopes of getting a 10/10 from IGN today, and I also think that Nier would review a lot better today, even if it was the exact same game.

The age of "if it's AAA, it's good" is thankfully over.

Souls series are the greatest games of all time. No sarcasm, that is just what i believe.

I'm inclined to agree, I do think it's my favorite series too, but, at least in my opinion, when Dark II is the best rated title, it indicates too much hype, too little fair criticism.

I do wonder if Bloodborne will be the one where they finally start taking serious points off for performance issues like bugs, glitches, framerate, loading, camera problems, etc. All of which were present in previous games but never factored into the final verdict much.



He is already dead.

And it would create this very weird situation, where it would be completely fair to do so, but people wouldn't take well when games with worse flaws were almost perfect, according to the same people. It's definitely complicated.
 
exactly the statement i was looking for thanks for the response =D the main thing that sways me away from the games is the lack of direction, do i just experiment with different passages in order to find the proper area for my level? or is there some sort of direction that the game gives you, even a hint?

Ah and here is one of the huge flaws of this game (I will be burned at the stake for saying this)

The series really thrives and grows out of a community effort. People play, experiment and learn from trial and error and pass on their new found knowledge and wisdom to the community via "Messages that can be posted in game" and sites such as GAF and Reddit.

This type of open ended directionless game is a serious turn off to a lot of people not used to it on day one. You get home, you are bit with the hype bug like the rest of GAF and you boot up the game and... Bam, what the bloody hell am I doing!?!

Good news for everyone is that people are out there like Yoshi, and others that are hardcore and will live to play this game 24-48 hours with small breaks in between filling tidbits of info into GAF and other places. Said info will spread and the community will thus grow and expand with how to guides, and basics being given via You Tube or twitch communities, Reddit and even here on GAF.

I for one am ready to contribute to the community, I have the days off and I am going to play the hell out of the game, but my contribution this time around is actually going to focus on story/lore/aesthetics of the game and less on where/what/when to do next.
 
Real Talk

How far do you guys think the
DarkBeast
Boss fight is in the game?

In the IGN video the player had 52000 bloodechoes so i think it might be later in the game.
 
I started with Dark souls 2 , for me there's either impossible or rewarding hard if that makes sense? Which DS 2 was rewarding hard.

im def used to rewarding hard in games, difficulty doesnt really bother me just horror aspect /lack of in game direction thats intimidating mostly, but in a world where most people havent even seen the game, i guess nobody really knows where to go just yet lol
 
I'd usually agree with you, but we had a similar defense force for people criticising Dark Souls II based on prerelease interviews, and it didn't turn out to be ok.

Warping from the start indeed came along with worse level design, but people would say everyone was jumping to conclusions assuming the level design would be worse just because of warping. And they would actually be right, because it is jumping to conclusions, but they weren't completely out of their minds either.

Talks of downgrade got shut down as if it was some ridiculous nonsense, but we did have Dark Souls II a year before, From Software and downgrades are no strangers now.

I would say this about that kind of thing (and i posted similar stuff back then): those changes were worrying, but people were flipping out hardcore and it was making the threads unreadable with hyperbolic negativity. It was fine to be concerned about it; those aspects ended up being not great, and the graphics downgrade was inexplicable/unprecedented. But the threads at that time were so negative that they were pointless. And it turned out that for most people, Dark Souls 2 was a solid enough game that just didn't live up to the heights of the two masterpieces that preceded it.

The talk of downgrades on Bloodborne was however ridiculous/paranoia, because there's nothing we've seen that actually looks downgraded. And here we are with people playing the final game and it's not downgraded; it's actually better than we've seen before. If Dark Souls 2 hadn't had a downgrade, no one would have thought to bring it up on this title.

Talk of 6 weapons and less replayablilty in the Edge article felt like them hedging on handing it a 10/10 right then and there. They weren't done with the game and were still in the initial honeymoon phase and needed to find something, anything to gripe about in that article lest it read like a pure fluff piece. I'm not saying they will eventually give it a 10/10, btw, it just already reads like its the best thing they've ever played and they were grasping at straws to find a negative to talk about.

It's ok to gripe about specific aspects, but the drive-by single sentence "6 weapons?!?" from people who seemingly weren't reading anything but their own posts was exhausting. It's fine for us to joke about it now.
 
I would say this about that kind of thing (and i posted similar stuff back then): those changes were worrying, but people were flipping out hardcore and it was making the threads unreadable with hyperbolic negativity. It was fine to be concerned about it; those aspects ended up being not great, and the graphics downgrade was inexplicable/unprecedented. But the threads at that time were so negative that they were pointless. And it turned out that for most people, Dark Souls 2 was a solid enough game that just didn't live up to the heights of the two masterpieces that preceded it.

The talk of downgrades on Bloodborne was however ridiculous/paranoia, because there's nothing we've seen that actually looks downgraded. And here we are with people playing the final game and it's not downgraded; it's actually better than we've seen before. If Dark Souls 2 hadn't had a downgrade, no one would have thought to bring it up on this title.

Talk of 6 weapons and less replayablilty in the Edge article felt like them hedging on handing it a 10/10 right then and there. They weren't done with the game and were still in the initial honeymoon phase and needed to find something, anything to gripe about in that article lest it read like a pure fluff piece. I'm not saying they will eventually give it a 10/10, btw, it just already reads like its the best thing they've ever played and they were grasping at straws to find a negative to talk about.

It's ok to gripe about specific aspects, but the drive-by single sentence "6 weapons?!?" from people who seemingly weren't reading anything but their own posts was exhausting. It's fine for us to joke about it now.

You're 100% right.
 
This "concern trolling trolling" is getting really fucking annoying. I hate whoever made people aware of the "concern trolling" term recently. Every single time someone express legitimate criticism and concern about some game people start with this bullshit.

People got concerned about the amount of weapons, why is this so offensive to you? Not every concern is fake in order to troll your favorite videogame, fuck this shit.

You're most definitely not alone, friend.
 
im def used to rewarding hard in games, difficulty doesnt really bother me just horror aspect /lack of in game direction thats intimidating mostly, but in a world where most people havent even seen the game, i guess nobody really knows where to go just yet lol

Imo there's nothing wrong with checking a guide if you get stuck and dont know where to go. You dont have to read the entire guide, there will be plenty of things you'll discover on your own.
 
To your first point, I disagree. Infamous' lack of mission variety was awful and made for a complete bore of a game.

Your second point is spot on though. Embargo dates are not an indicator of quality. I doubt Sony or From are lacking in confidence about the reception this game is going to get.

Everyone should realize that games like Batman have day 1 embargo. Heck, GTA5 had an embargo too, day before release. It's not uncommon and doesn't indicate anything about the quality of the game.
 
I'm inclined to agree, I do think it's my favorite series too, but, at least in my opinion, when Dark II is the best rated title, it indicates too much hype, too little fair criticism.

I think this is because

1. The souls games were startlingly fresh when they first came out and it is notoriously common for people to initially hate them until they "click" and suddenly make sense. I know quite a few people like that. I'm sure reviewers are warmed up to them now and more likely to score them higher.

2. As a single player game, Dark Souls 2 is a pretty good game, and it's the sort of game where the flaws become much more apparent on later playthroughs or in PvP. Reviewers play the games in offline mode, remember. My gripes with DkS2 didn't really solidify until late in my second playthrough.
 
Indeed.

There's also the opposite, though. Games like Nier got panned (fairly, actually) for its flaws, and lowish scores that didn't forgive those flaws because of the fantastic story, characters and music, but then you get your AAA cinematic crap with a shit story and it gets praised for its narrative, ten outta ten.

It is changing though, reviewers have been far more strict when it comes to scores at least in the past couple of years. I do think that Uncharted 3 had no hopes of getting a 10/10 from IGN today, and I also think that Nier would review a lot better today, even if it was the exact same game.

The age of "if it's AAA, it's good" is thankfully over.



I'm inclined to agree, I do think it's my favorite series too, but, at least in my opinion, when Dark II is the best rated title, it indicates too much hype, too little fair criticism.



And it would create this very weird situation, where it would be completely fair to do so, but people wouldn't take well when games with worse flaws were almost perfect, according to the same people. It's definitely complicated.

First off you are starting to become one of my new favorite posters.

I don't want to derail the thread but the points you make on journalism/and ratings are very much real problems. The biggest issue for me is not that it continues to happen. But that it is allowed to happen by a very complacent community that does not require nor spend the time and effort to correct these bad polices, habits, and lack of integrity from sites reviewing and or posting news about our hobby.

If even 1/10th of the posts on GAF and Reddit were redirected from things such as HYPE, or complaints over a lack of something and instead query why we allow such drivel to even exist in the first place from major contributors to our hobby such as Polygon or Kotaku things would eventually get better.

As for Bloodborne. There are going to be very real problems with this game, loading is going to be a huge negative. I am curious to see how the less passionate and hardcore souls fans take the load times.

If this game does well and I believe it will within its audience I would love to see a few other games take a darker more sinister atmosphere when in early design. Give me more Poe/Lovecraft Victorian Gothic madness please.
 
I'm inclined to agree, I do think it's my favorite series too, but, at least in my opinion, when Dark II is the best rated title, it indicates too much hype, too little fair criticism.

I don't think its too little criticism as much as its a lack of reviewers who don't have the inability to actually articulate (or perhaps even be able to tell) what makes the games so great.

We can all sit here and talk about great level design, what makes combat so good and so on but I doubt the vast majority of reviewers are capable of doing the same. They probably say Dark Souls 2 to be in the same vein as Dark Souls 1. I doubt the hype got to them so much as they were probably incapable of noticing the flaws that the community around the games can see.

Edit: Also, lets not fill the loading time debate with too much hyperbole. It ranges anywhere from 10 to 40 seconds depending on what you are doing. 40 seconds isn't great, but overall, the loading times aren't so bad as to be a huge negative.
 
Real Talk

How far do you guys think the
DarkBeast
Boss fight is in the game?

In the IGN video the player had 52000 bloodechoes so i think it might be later in the game.

Do you really want to know? Also that IGN video was
in a chalice dungeon
btw. So not really the location where you fight the boss "in-game."

Depends on the player. There is quite a twist to getting to that boss that I will not mention, other then it has never happened in a souls game thus far. Some players may get there faster then others. First time through players are going to be in for a shock :p

I can't wait to see/hear the reactions to it.

Edit: Argh bottom of the page.
 
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