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[myco666]

NG+ is really a step back from DS2. I loved what they did with that. I hope they bring it back for DS3

Yup. Even if I don't really like some of the NG+ changes in DS2 I still think it is a good idea and would be great for BB.

Jeez the bosses are tough in this one.

I'm currently fighting

Spoiler

Orphan of Kos

and soon I'm going to be out of Blood Vials. The health system in this game is still one of its biggest blunders. Can't wait to go back to Estus Flasks in DS3!

IMO Vials are good also. It is different and you need to use them differently from Flasks since they don't refill everytime you die.

edit.

That, and the loading times. They really discourage me from continuing to play.

I don't think the loading times are that bad anymore. At launch they were bad but now they feel as long as in other games.

 

[cheesekao]

Jeez the bosses are tough in this one.

I'm currently fighting

Spoiler

Orphan of Kos

and soon I'm going to be out of Blood Vials. The health system in this game is still one of its biggest blunders. Can't wait to go back to Estus Flasks in DS3!

It's really strange seeing how people can run out of vials. I always have 500++ of them in stock and no, I don't farm them.

 

[guybrushfreeman]

Spoiler

Orphan

is really beating me down. Both literally and figuratively. Just a couple more tries.....

 

[Bedlam]

IMO Vials are good also. It is different and you need to use them differently from Flasks since they don't refill everytime you die.

They are fine as long as you're not stuck at a boss. But when you are, they seem like a terrible concept. Having to stop retrying the boss because you have to farm blood vials just feels terrible.

I'm usually an advocate of the concepts that raise the stakes in the Soulsborne games. I want the boss run, I want bonfire warping to NOT be available right from the beginning etc. But blood vials farming doesn't raise the stakes, it just introduces a lot of uninteresting busywork when you least want/need it. Moreover, you are incentivised to not make the most of every attempt at beating a boss because you don't want to use too many blood vials. This is counter-intuitive.

I don't think the loading times are that bad anymore. At launch they were bad but now they feel as long as in other games.

Agreed. Loading times are completely fine after they patched them.

 

[cheesekao]

They are fine as long as you're not stuck at a boss. But when you are, they seem like a terrible concept. Having to stop retrying the boss because you have to farm blood vials just feels terrible.

I'm usually an advocate of the concepts that raise the stakes in the Soulsborne games. I want the boss run, I want bonfire warping to NOT be available right from the beginning etc. But blood vials farming doesn't raise the stakes, it just introduces a lot of uninteresting busywork when you least want/need it.

You should really be buying blood vials instead of farming them. Saves a lot of time.

 

[Imperfected]

If you know you're about to fight a boss, level up (if you can/still want to), then spend the rest of your echoes on Blood Vials/QS Bullets. There's really not much reason to go into a boss encounter with echoes on-hand.

 

[Ratrat]

Is Cainhurst Castle supposed to be played near the end? I just entered it and those bulbous things are kicking my ass. At this point it seems harder than the dlc.

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

Is Cainhurst Castle supposed to be played near the end? I just entered it and those bulbous things are kicking my ass. At this point it seems harder than the dlc.

Eh run past them to the door leading inside the castle. Not sure whats the recommended level is for Cainhurst.

 

[Ratrat]

Eh run past them to the door leading inside the castle. Not sure whats the recommended level is for Cainhurst.

Got it. Im level 60. :s

 

[Bedlam]

You should really be buying blood vials instead of farming them. Saves a lot of time.

If you know you're about to fight a boss, level up (if you can/still want to), then spend the rest of your echoes on Blood Vials/QS Bullets. There's really not much reason to go into a boss encounter with echoes on-hand.

Always did that and up until now, I never really had to farm blood vials in any of my 4-5 playthroughs. Maybe once or so. Can't really remember. But I still saw that the blood vials concept is highly flawed within the framework of this game. And now I'm experiencing that first-hand. It can be an absolutely unfun showstopper. And when you're running out of bloodvials while grinding against a boss, "buy blood vials instead of farming them" is not really the most constructive advice nor is it a vaild counter-argument.

I had about 100 bloodvials when I arrived at this boss and it merely amounted to about 10 attempts during which I lost about 10 bloodvials each time. You know, because I wanted to learn the boss, get to his second form to learn those patterns as well etc. And the game actively punishes you for playing this way.

I love this game, it's my GotY by far but it absolutely has a couple of flaws and there are aspects that other Souls games did better.

 

[Imperfected]

Always did that and up until now, I never really had to farm blood vials in any of my 4-5 playthroughs. Maybe once or so. Can't really remember. But I still saw that the blood vials concept is highly flawed within the framework of this game. And now I'm experiencing that first-hand.

I do think it has some minor loss of elegance in that the Estus system allows the designers to very specifically "tune" the difficulty of areas in accordance with how much healing they expect the players to have.

That said, they haven't really used that design feature consistently well. You see it a lot in early areas of Dark 1 (and a few later areas), but barely at all in Dark 2.

I can also see why it was deemed to not be particularly valuable for Bloodborne. (The rally/regain mechanic potentially invalidates most of what it would do. The impact would just be that players would try to regain much more aggressively if they had Estus-style healing limitation, which was probably deemed unnecessary given that most players seem to be a little too aggressive about trying to regain already.)

 

[Dynedom]

Is Cainhurst Castle supposed to be played near the end? I just entered it and those bulbous things are kicking my ass. At this point it seems harder than the dlc.

Those spider-things are an odd spike of difficulty in Cainhurst. If you're above level 60, you should be fine. If you can't take them out, just run past.

 

[cheesekao]

Always did that and up until now, I never really had to farm blood vials in any of my 4-5 playthroughs. Maybe once or so. Can't really remember. But I still saw that the blood vials concept is highly flawed within the framework of this game. And now I'm experiencing that first-hand. It can be an absolutely unfun showstopper. And when you're running out of bloodvials while grinding against a boss, "buy blood vials instead of farming them" is not really the most constructive advice nor is it a vaild counter-argument.

I had about 100 bloodvials when I arrived at this boss and it merely amounted to about 10 attempts during which I lost about 10 bloodvials each time. You know, because I wanted to learn the boss, get to his second form to learn those patterns as well etc. And the game actively punishes you for playing this way.

I love this game, it's my GotY by far but it absolutely has a couple of flaws and there are aspects that other Souls games did better.

I'm not saying the blood vial system is good but there are ways to make it less of a problem. You can easily speed run to the ailing loran chalice dungeon in under an hour and the mobs there drop like 4k+ souls with moon runes equipped. You can easily amass enough echoes by simply going through it or use the farming spot to max out your vials and never have to worry about farming again. Morover, you can use those echoes to buy stuff like fire paper, gain quick levels and all that jazz.

 

[KeRaSh]

Hitting my head against the wall that is L

Spoiler

udwig

.
Anyone wanna join up? Ringing bell with GAFHUNT password.

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

Hitting my head against the wall that is L

Spoiler

udwig

.
Anyone wanna join up? Ringing bell with GAFHUNT password.

Ng or ng+? I can help out if it's one of those 2. And is it call upper case?

 

[KeRaSh]

NG+ all uppercase

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

NG+ all uppercase

Okay give me a min to load into the game.

 

[KeRaSh]

Okay give me a min to load into the game.

I'm scared... ;_;

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

I'm scared... ;_;

Ringing the bell outside the fog gate, we can always get the other NPC as well.

edit:welp thought I was able to run pass that attack...hopefully you got it. If not I can ring the bell again.

 

[Drencrom]

FUCK EVERYTHING, THAT SLIMY ORPHAN FUCK CAUGHT ME WITH HIS BULLSHIT ELECTRICITY ATTACK JUST AS I HAD HIM DOWN TO A SLIVER OF HEALTH

 

[KeRaSh]

Phew! Still shaking but prey slaughtered! Thanks for the quick help!

 

[Bendoruu]

Finally beat Laurence !

I found a way to quickly kill (or cheese him?) with the pizza cutter. It took some tries and good RNG to get him but he was down in 3 minutes !

NG+ LVL145-ish and Pizza Cutter +10

Here is the fight if you're interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7_nemyO6SA

 

[NEO0MJ]

I don't think the loading times are that bad anymore. At launch they were bad but now they feel as long as in other games.

They wouldn't be so bad if this was a game where you don't die or teleport often but both of those things are done often in this game and so it becomes really annoying for me.

I'm not saying the blood vial system is good but there are ways to make it less of a problem.

But like you said it's still a problematic situation and it's so annoying having to farm, especially since you have to kill yourself to respawn enemies.

 

[Kweh]

Is the

Spoiler

Orphan of Kos fight the end of the DLC? It didn't lead to anywhere but I still have 2 Trophies remaining

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

Question- From a role-playing perspective, what kind of off-hand do you folks think Ludwig and Simon would have used?

I think the Ludwig Shotgun would have been more for his followers similar to how Ludwig himself doesn't use the Holy Blade. And Simon is harder still because he doesn't like guns.

 

[Drencrom]

So I finally beat O

Spoiler

rpahn of Kos

and I

Spoiler

killed it's spirit(?) so the "nightmare was slain"

. I guess that's the end of the expansion, right?

 

[Solaire of Astora]

Is the

Spoiler

Orphan of Kos fight the end of the DLC? It didn't lead to anywhere but I still have 2 Trophies remaining

Spoiler

Yes.

The two other trophies are

Spoiler

for optional content.

One is

Spoiler

an optional boss

, the other is for

Spoiler

collecting all new weapons and firearms.

 

[cheesekao]

But like you said it's still a problematic situation and it's so annoying having to farm, especially since you have to kill yourself to respawn enemies.

The bold hunter's mark exists m8.

Also, a single farming session in ailing Loran will set you up for a very long time if not forever. I personally think dark souls is far worse in the grinding department because of the chunks.

 

[guybrushfreeman]

FUCK EVERYTHING, THAT SLIMY ORPHAN FUCK CAUGHT ME WITH HIS BULLSHIT ELECTRICITY ATTACK JUST AS I HAD HIM DOWN TO A SLIVER OF HEALTH

I feel your pain.

 

[GeeTeeCee]

Beat both

Spoiler

Living Failures

and

Spoiler

Lady Maria

on he first attempt, but there were a few worryingly close moments in both.

I'm liking the Whirligig Saw, and if I can get it to +10 it'll make a fine replacement for Ludwig's sword. That L2 is hilarious, I just decimated an enemy hunter with it.

Anyone know if it's possible to open up the cells in the bottom of the

Spoiler

Research Labs

? There's a few items several floors up I can't grab and a door at the bottom floor I haven't opened up yet too.

 

[thecosmicfly]

Ok, I don't what what's up with Ebrietas in the Isz Chalice Dungeon, but she just does not want to stagger/get visceral attacked no matter what I do to her head. Skipping past using a +8 Tonitrus with all manner of R1/R2 combos after she does her face slam move, I've been trying to just use the cannon cheese method to see what the heck is up. I swear, I've hit her in the head with a Cannon +6, with bone marrow ash and with bloodtinge 25 TWICE in a row and I get nothing. At least I think it's nothing. I'm not hearing the visceral attack audio cue at all and she doesn't seem to stagger at all to let me pull it off.

And this is all in phase 1. Is this glitched or is Ebrietas just different to the one at the Altar of Despair?

 

[Ferr986]

Ok, I don't what what's up with Ebrietas in the Isz Chalice Dungeon, but she just does not want to stagger/get visceral attacked no matter what I do to her head. Skipping past using a +8 Tonitrus with all manner of R1/R2 combos after she does her face slam move, I've been trying to just use the cannon cheese method to see what the heck is up. I swear, I've hit her in the head with a Cannon +6, with bone marrow ash and with bloodtinge 25 TWICE in a row and I get nothing. At least I think it's nothing. I'm not hearing the visceral attack audio cue at all and she doesn't seem to stagger at all to let me pull it off.

And this is all in phase 1. Is this glitched or is Ebrietas just different to the one at the Altar of Despair?

I guess she's more resistant, I fighted her yesterday in a root Isz and I could stagger and do a visceral on her (Pizza cutter+10 ftw!)

Anyone know if it's possible to open up the cells in the bottom of the

Spoiler

Research Labs

? There's a few items several floors up I can't grab and a door at the bottom floor I haven't opened up yet too.

yep, there is a key on the Research lab.

 

[NEO0MJ]

Question- From a role-playing perspective, what kind of off-hand do you folks think Ludwig and Simon would have used?

Spoiler

I think Ludwig used the regular Holy Blade, at least until he found the Moonlight Blade, so he probably used his rifle. My guess is Simon used his blade alone, mostly in its trick mode.

The bold hunter's mark exists m8.

Those things cost money! I mostly just use the regular mark.

 

[GeordieMark]

Is Cainhurst Castle supposed to be played near the end? I just entered it and those bulbous things are kicking my ass. At this point it seems harder than the dlc.

Strafe to their left and stay to the side of them. Usually you can draw one out at a time. They aren't so bad once you suss them out.

 

[laxu]

Strafe to their left and stay to the side of them. Usually you can draw one out at a time. They aren't so bad once you suss them out.

Exactly. Just figure out the timing of their double jump attack since that's really their only truly dangerous move. Otherwise they are not so bad unless you have to fight several at the same time. Every single one of them can be fought 1 vs 1 in Cainhurst Castle by drawing them out with the pistol or figuring when they separate from the pack. Fast weapons with thrust attacks are pretty good against them.

They're pretty good for farming echoes and practising your dodge.

 

[Freewheelin']

Are servers down?

I keep getting 'failed to connect to bloodborne server'

 

[cheesekao]

Are servers down?

I keep getting 'failed to connect to bloodborne server'

Just keep retrying. It's a bug.

Spoiler

Those things cost money! I mostly just use the regular mark.

Spoiler

1.2k each is chump change man.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Regarding vials, I miss the Estus system as well but what I do is I run an easy root chalice with moon and heir runes, grab some 100k within the minute and buy vials. Its good that they raised the cap to 600.

 

[NEO0MJ]

1.2k each is chump change man.

That's like two blood vials, brah!

Spoiler

I'm very cheap >.>

 

[cheesekao]

That's like two blood vials, brah!

Spoiler

I'm very cheap >.>

I pretty much maxed out all of my consumable items at this point. I have over a million echoes with nothing to buy.

 

[watdaeff4]

I don't think the loading times are that bad anymore. At launch they were bad but now they feel as long as in other games.

Agreed. and (for me) putting the item descriptions up to read helps to

 

[thecosmicfly]

So I think I asked this before, but as far as anyone knows does any SP progression affect anything in the DLC and vice versa? Like if I progress the night and get all the way up to Mergo's Loft that's not going to screw me over in the DLC will it? And continuing the DLC isn't going to hamper any side quest progress/NPC's in the main story?

 

[Ratrat]

Strafe to their left and stay to the side of them. Usually you can draw one out at a time. They aren't so bad once you suss them out.

Will try this. Thanks.
The area is awesome too! Reminds me of Dark Souls and adds some nice variety to the game, finally.

 

[Arjen]

So I think I asked this before, but as far as anyone knows does any SP progression affect anything in the DLC and vice versa? Like if I progress the night and get all the way up to Mergo's Loft that's not going to screw me over in the DLC will it? And continuing the DLC isn't going to hamper any side quest progress/NPC's in the main story?

It seems nothing in the main game is affected, I did the DLC at various points in the game and haven't noticed any differences. The doll does have some new dialog that you wont get if you defeat Mergo's Wet Nurse.

 

[guybrushfreeman]

Glorious Cooperation! Wish I had time to solo every boss but co-op is fun in it's own way. Final boss was the most difficult by far even with others. I'll have to come back one day and solo everything.

Bowblade. Bowblade. Bowblade. All my blood for a Bowblade. My life and eyes for my Bowblade.

The DLC was amazing. I'm glad the extra content was so high quality. The new areas, bosses, weapons and music were all incredible.

 

[Mutombo]

i cannot for the life of me get past the second phase of Laurence. I've tried, I've tried and I've tried.

Even with co-op help I fail. I wait until he vomits lava, I rush in, get one hit in, but I sometimes I get stuck in his lava, and once you get one stun, he'll punch a combo in your face which you can't dodge and you're dead.

If anyone would like to help I'd appreciate it. Someone with a bowblade, who's able to cheese his last phase, for instance.

 

[addyb]

I love this game soo much. It's effectively ruined the rest of gaming for me as any game I jump to after this just feels poor in comparison regardless of the genre. It takes me an age to adjust to games outside the souls universe.

Anyway had a great Co op session with a mate last night. He'd got upto research hall so we cleared that out and did the living failures. Got invaded quite a few times which is always good fun.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

Laurence is the only thing standing between me and the re-platinum. I haven't even fought him once yet because I don't want it to be over.

 

[Ferr986]

i cannot for the life of me get past the second phase of Laurence. I've tried, I've tried and I've tried.

Even with co-op help I fail. I wait until he vomits lava, I rush in, get one hit in, but I sometimes I get stuck in his lava, and once you get one stun, he'll punch a combo in your face which you can't dodge and you're dead.

If anyone would like to help I'd appreciate it. Someone with a bowblade, who's able to cheese his last phase, for instance.

I have a lvl 100 BT character with Chikage+Bowblade. If you're not on NG+ I could help you.

Not sure oh much of a cheese this boss with a bowblade is honestly, dude also likes to rush to you. (honestly, haven't beaten himwith this character because fuck him).

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Is Cainhurst Castle supposed to be played near the end? I just entered it and those bulbous things are kicking my ass. At this point it seems harder than the dlc.

Got it. Im level 60. :s

A little low, but doable. The blood ticks are more manageable if you have a strong weapon with a heavy staggering power, though. The kirkhammer or 2h Ludwig blade works well, since each hit staggers them. I remember having trouble with the cane or blades of mercy or other skill weapons since they'd poise right through and kick my ass.