Hello all,

I thought I'd post this here because I'm in the "don't believe the hype" school of jaded gamers, have played a lot of DS2 and some DS1, and I see quite a lot of people who haven't played previous From Soft games talking about how they're thinking about getting this game and I would like to help in preventing unnecessary suffering and to warn some people off wasting their money and time.

The short version:

If you don't have a lot of time, mental energy and serious amounts of patience for extreme repetition (also known as grinding) to invest in an obtuse and complex Japanese RPG with hardcore difficulty, don't bother. I have seen people online seriously losing their head trying to deal with these games.

The long version:

- The chief game designer, Miyazaki, is a self-proclaimed masochist. The games are made to cater to the "hardcore" crowd who demand a lot of dying, repetition and frustration in their games. This is confirmed by the recent news hype that the developers are apparently finding BB's New Game+ "too hard to beat" .. right…. I find this particularly telling of what Sony and From think of their customers' intelligence… they seem to think we're all boys wanting to one-up everyone else.

- BB is a direct descendant of the Souls games. It is basically a Souls game in a different setting and with faster combat, less weapon and armor variety, and some randomly generated dungeons to extend playtime for those who like randomly generated content, as the actual hand-made levels in the game are not exactly vast. This is not an open-world game .

- The "tough but fair" description of these games is a common fallacy. The design philosophy behind the Souls games is to punish players for any mistakes and lack of prior knowledge of traps, to the extent that the game becomes harder the more mistakes you make. The games are designed to especially punish people who play these games as hack& slash action games, rushing in trying to kill stuff by button mashing. Stuff gets a little better typically after the 50-100 hour mark for a new player.

-There is no redemption story in these games. It's doom & gloom all the way with no light at the end of the tunnel. Defeating the final boss accomplishes nothing to restore the decay in the world. This ties in with the concept of endless New Game + cycles, replaying the game over and over, killing the same stuff over and over, with some extra enemies thrown in at higher NG iterations.

-The Souls games are a knee-jerk reaction to the condescending constant hand-holding of modern games ("Move left stick to move"); they are deliberately obtuse in their mechanics and puzzles, and in-game descriptions are vague and rarely tell you exactly what an item or character stat does. You are supposed to find out for yourself by blind exploration (there are no maps) and trial and error, and many actually useful consumable items are very limited and hard to find. What this means in practice is that unless you have large amounts of time and patience for blind trial & error and a lot or repeated attempts, you will need to spend plenty of time researching the games on third-party wikis and forums and sift through a lot of badly written and often mistaken comments, as From do not believe in spending time explaining how their games work . They are chiefly interested in the money and have clearly stated that they make games for the Japanese market. There are no official forums or help pages and the only official "help" is in a guide you have to buy at a premium price.

-On top of all this, certain in-game stats and mechanics have often been found to not work as supposed to, in the previous games, eg Poise and weapon-attribute scaling.

-The balance of the games for multiplayer has been known to be very off. Necessitating repeated patches that often rendered character builds useless because of serious nerfs, which in turn necessitated a re-spec or starting from scratch as re-spec options are very limited. If you start playing BB now, be prepared for your game to be changed several times, whether you like it or not, whether you play PvP or not, because the games are primarily balanced for PvP.

-When you die the game does not go back in time to the last save point. You re-spawn at the last fixed "checkpoint" (bonfires in previous games, lamps in BB) you reached (of which there are very few) but any items you used before dying are gone, and so is the XP points you collected. XP is not automatically added to your character as you kill enemies, instead it is collected to be used at checkpoints or the game's hub to level up you character; or at item shops (of which there are very few and sometimes placed in hard-to reach or hidden areas) to buy weapons/ armor/healing items/ accessories. This XP is called "Souls" in the previous games and "Blood Echoes" in BB and is the main currency in the game. When you die all the Blood Echoes you had collected are left at the spot you died or get picked up by the enemy that killed you. You then have nothing to spend so you can buy more healing items or whatever. You can get those echoes back if you can make it back to where you died and pick them up, and you may have to kill that enemy to get them back if they're not on the ground. If you die again before you retrieve the echoes, they are gone forever, which means that you just wasted a lot of time. It is possible after repeated fails that you will get to a situation that makes it very hard to proceed and you are better off re-starting the game from scratch.

-Common enemies re-spawn after each death which means you have to fight through the same enemies again and again. Dark Souls 2 offered a compromise in that common mobs would de-spawn after the player kills them 10 times or so (which is why I liked DS2 more than DS1) but this doesn't seem to be the case with BB.

-There are usually no lamps (checkpoints) near bosses, and the bosses are very hard to beat. Dying at a boss means you lose any items you used trying to beat it (such as bombs, weapon buffs, potions etc), your blood echoes are left in the boss room and you are sent way back to the last checkpoint. To have another go at the boss, you have to fight your way through all the enemies you killed before. Over and over and over as you try to learn the boss's attack patterns and come up with a viable strategy. Think very carefully about this and watch some Youtube videos before you jump into these games, as this is possibly the worse thing about these games as far as time and patience goes. The repetition can be extremely nerve-wracking. You can quickly come to a point where you have no echoes to buy more potions/whatever you need, forcing you to grind on minor enemies to regain what you've lost. Items you find in chests or on the ground do not re-spawn after death. For example you may find a weapon buff before a boss fight that helps with that boss, but if you use it up and die, that item is gone forever, and the next time you have to fight that boss without it. A lot of players gave up on Demon Souls and Dark Souls 1 because of certain boss fights.

-The other possibly worse thing about these games is invasions. This attracts probably the majority of the series' toxic fanbase. These are players whose idea of fun is to invade and destroy newbies, so as to "ruin their day". They accomplish that by figuring out how the game does its matchmaking and spending enormous amounts of time setting up their character and learning all the possible traps and ambush locations so as to give them the maximum advantage against the average clueless new player who is just trying to make their way through the game. They will often follow through with some kind of provocative gesture and even send you a message gloating about their victory if you dare try to fight back or run away. What this boils down to is that your progress will be often set back or even destroyed by players you have no chance of defeating. It sounds like BB does its matchmaking by simply comparing player levels without taking into account time spent playing, echoes acquired, or weapon upgrades. Players gearing up for invading will play through the whole game acquiring and upgrading the most powerful weapons without levelling up their character so that they can be matched with newbies at the beginning of the game who have neither the experience nor the equipment to stand a fighting chance.

I hope I am wrong and that the matchmaking in BB is more nuanced and fair than it has been in the previous games, but nothing in From's attitude gives any hope that this is the case. Invasions make the "tough but fair" description of these games look like a bad joke.

It does seem that invasions in BB are more limited and possibly optional, so it remains to be seen.

-The "puzzles" in these games game are often illogical and consist of finding obscure secrets that you have little chance of deducing. For a good example look up "How to drain Mytha's poison pool" in DS2.

Undoubtedly some of the "hardcore" fans will say this post is a troll. . . and attempt to argue and deny every single point I've made.

From my experience with the fanbase, I expect several responses of the "git gud, scrub" variety, and some sort of personal attack. To pre-empt those responses: I don't really care about your opinion as you don't care about mine. That schoolyard bullyboy attitude is a good example of the toxicity of the Souls fanbase and reminds of the first ever message I ever got from a Souls player : it was "F*** YOU" because I happened to kill him using only magic (he invaded).. this is the "welcome to Dark Souls" people can expect when they go into these games. There is a way for the developers to minimise that, an easier way than hoping that everyone will grow up and be nice and civil. That is to design your game so that people are encouraged to be nice and civil and unfair matches are prevented. From Soft evidently do not care about that, judging from their previous games. Elitism and trolling newbs is what they seem to be about.

As a big fan of action-RPGs I really want to like these games and play them. However, I like people more than games and I don't want people to be tricked into paying top-dollar price for a game they will hate and that will make them angry. I expect a flood of BB discs in the second-hand market within a month of the game's release, and am holding off buying the game for this (and Youtube reviews, as you all should)- if I buy it at all. Perhaps I should not have posted this to increase the amount of used copies that will become available soon :)

Hopefully GB is not in a "special relationship" with Sony and this post will not be deleted. Don't bother flaming me because I will ignore you. I have no face to lose here.

Have a nice day.

I think you're talking more about Dark Souls than Demon's. Dark Souls does indeed have many cheap traps and tricks whereas the most you see in Demon's are spring loaded arrow traps that are super easy to avoid. Also, Demon's Souls story totally has a satisfying ending and is not all doom and gloom like Dark Souls. So the world might be mended.

Yes, I haven't actually played Demon Souls, just watched a bit on YouTube. The "world tendency" business and a few other things I've heard mentioned regarding bosses and the odds of actually finishing the game have put me off trying it. Could be a good time to try it now that the invaders have probably moved on :) but I guess same applies to co-op potential.

I only really stuck with DS2 for the co-op.

I find it kind of baffling that Sony is pushing BB so much as a system seller and it think it's going to backfire on them.

I wish I was excited about this game. I got way into DS1 and pretty into DS2 but never finished it. Went around shirtless and punching things to death (it...actually wasn't that hard to be honest, you just need to learn how to dodge) in 2 as my first character (Alex Louis Armstrong-inspired), but leveled up too far and co-op kinda vanished (it would start taking like 10 minutes to get summoned, and even then it was usually only against an invader) and just kinda lost interest.

Still, from the OP, Bloodborne definitely seems like a souls game.

I watched a couple of hours of someone streaming BB last night and read some stuff on some forums which is where I got my impressions. Graphically it looks pretty awesome and the enemy phantom range and attack tracking ridiculousness seem to have been fixed. You also have much more of a chance to interrupt enemy attacks which removes a lot of the furstration in combat. Bosses also have more variety in their attacks and behaviours.

As regards DS2 co-op: I'm on PS3 and at highest Soul Memory tier and co-op is still fairly active, if you can wait 5-10 minutes to be summoned in the most active areas (highlighted in the fast travel screen). I am level 343 and getting matched with players at max level ( 834 or something) so I just avoid invasions by waiting inside boss areas or jumping off cliffs upon being invaded. Some of those guys still send hatemail if you refuse to engage :D

This post seems pretty dubious.

@spiceflow: "Hopefully GB is not in a "special relationship" with Sony and this post will not be deleted. Don't bother flaming me because I will ignore you. I have no face to lose here."

I don't think you know what Giant Bomb is.

@spiceflow said:

... the fuck am I reading?

@johnnymcginley said:

That's off-topic but it looks like a mainstream video games site.

@cale said:

No. I'm more of a moon type and I avoid memes.

@spiceflow said:

I... uhm... okay?

Way to insinuate GB is taking bribes from Sony. Also, these games are hard but you make them seem like their impossible. Relax.

Definitely keen to know more about how the invasion and co-op mechanic works and whether the terrible issues with lag/hitboxes that were prevalent in DS2 PvP have been fixed. Guess I'll have to wait and see when the game goes online.

"They are chiefly interested in the money and have clearly stated that they make games for the Japanese market. There are no official forums or help pages and the only official "help" is in a guide you have to buy at a premium price."

Who are you even comparing them to? What makes From "interested in the money" as compared to all other game companies? Do you think the guide is necessary (as compared to wiki pages / friends / being observant)?

Your "reporting" comes off as some of the most biased writing that I've seen in a long time.

I feel like I'm reading Gamefaqs.

Yeah, cause elitism and n00b trolling are things that ONLY happen in Souls games.

The guide book is over 500 pages. I'll give them my $25 for that.

My tip for those new to Souls style games heading into BB:

"Try again, try again, try again, change your approach and go back at it, try again, try again."

So this guy made a new account today to post this? hmm.. seems legit.

Can we get this thread locked?

Guys...guys...

I don't think this guy has any idea what website he's on

I've played every souls game so far, and although I enjoyed them more or less, I'm quite far removed from the "best games ever" camp. (So far Bloodborne has done nothing to excite me.) These games certainly are flawed in more than a few ways, and some of the stuff you mention is a fair assessment.

But other parts of it are riddled with misleading or misinformation. The whole thing is just teeming with the sense that you have a bone to pick with these games and certainly the fanbase. You try to present this as an altruistic attempt to warn new players of what they might be getting into, but then every other line is some snotty little jab or snide remark aimed toward the people who like these games, which is what really gets under my skin.

Either excise all that BS and make it seem like a legitimate attempt to provide information to new players, or throw out that worthless facade and make it into a full-on hate piece.

Ya. Go back to /V/.

While some of your points about the difficulty and the short version of your post is something that I can respect, your gross over-simplification of the souls community as a bunch of hardcore asshats isn't true. I've had plenty of great co-op experiences and help from other players. Invasions do happen, and that may be a point of contention of the series, but it's not something to pin the playerbase for. The intent of the developers is to make it so you never feel completely safe.

Also of all the publishers to call "they wants da monies!" From Software should be low on the list. A hardcore RPG like the ones they make isn't something that's guaranteed success.

All video game companies are interested in money. Video games are a product, and a business. It's not surprising From wants to make money. I'm happy to give it to them for their work.

The Souls games are fun if you like the cut of their jib. I think it's pretty clear to most people if they want to try the games or not. This post seems superfluous.

You seem like a bad person.

You called it, GB is waist deep in Big John T Drake

Erm....

Do you wanna ...
I mean ...

Could it be that you have met PotatoMarshall?

That is the one of the dumbest reasons for not playing Demon's Souls. World tendency only matters if you are looking for some specific weapons or armors, most of which are very niche and aren't even particularly good gear. Finishing the game takes no longer than Dark Souls or Dark Souls 2. Hell it is probably shorter than 2, certainly has a ton less bosses and many of the levels have insanely fast short cuts once you learn them. Meanwhile the invaders were far more annoying and pedantic in Dark Souls 1 than they ever even got close to being in Demon's, and I was playing Demon's on day 1.

Trolling right through to the end where the super trolling breaks out.

Why would you ever say you need to grind in a souls game where character stats are the least important element in the gameplay? The games level you up as a player as you learn to dodge, and when to attack. It's not a JRPG. It's an Action RPG, where the player's actions rule, not the stats of a character. You don't roll a number to see if you dodge, you actually dodge. If you're stressing over your bloodstain or your echoes, you're gonna have a bad time.

@nasar7: So the world might be mended.

Unless you're an absolute monster. Don't let them take it from you..

@elod said:

Why would you ever say you need to grind in a souls game where character stats are the least important element in the gameplay? The games level you up as a player as you learn to dodge, and when to attack. It's not a JRPG. It's an Action RPG, where the player's actions rule, not the stats of a character. You don't roll a number to see if you dodge, you actually dodge. If you're stressing over your bloodstain or your echoes, you're gonna have a bad time.

Souls are needed to upgrade weapons, buy stuff etc etc. Most people grind in every kind of RPG for various reasons- usually difficulty spikes- and people complained that they couldn't grind/farm in DS2 because of enemy de-spawn...

@zeik said:

But other parts of it are riddled with misleading or misinformation.

The whole thing is just teeming with the sense that you have a bone to pick with these games and certainly the fanbase. You try to present this as an altruistic attempt to warn new players of what they might be getting into, but then every other line is some snotty little jab or snide remark aimed toward the people who like these games, which is what really gets under my skin.

Either excise all that BS and make it seem like a legitimate attempt to provide information to new players, or throw out that worthless facade and make it into a full-on hate piece.

It is an attempt to provide info on what new players can expect based on my experience with the Souls games, my viewing of the BB gameplay stream and readings, & my experience with the vocal fanbase (a few examples can be seen in this thread). Unless you're a moderator, I 'm not going to edit my post to conform to what you want. Again, I'm not interested in flame wars. A lot more people read forums than post in them.

The Souls games aren't for everyone no, but they are not impossible. All you need is a basic understanding of rpg class building, and everything else you can look up.

As far as the multiplayer goes, well when I want to play with people I go online, and when I don't I go offline. Don't want to get invaded? Go offline. Want help with a boss? Then go online, and make a mad dash for the boss.

As for the multiplayer community. It's a multiplayer community, which mean good people and the absolute worst people. Every game with an online component, has its assholes. Yes, these games allow for better than average dickory, but my ass has been pulled out of the fire more than it has been set aflame.

Sucks that you seem to have had a bad experience, but some of us really like this series, and not because of masochism. I'm not the best videogame player, and I have never had a real difficult time with this series. If anything I think people exaggerated the difficulty, when all you need is patients.

@spiceflow: No, this is NOT a troll post. I agree wholeheartedly with what you said, with the exception of that it's possible to love this series and NOT be masochistic and the last paragraph or so. The multiplayer is nowhere near that terrible. Invaders cannot actively hunt you down constantly, so the worst you get is one, maybe two bad runs per session as a result of an invader. Besides that, who takes messages sent from jerks on a video game seriously? If it gets that bad, unplug your internet, play offline.

Also, perhaps you phrased this in the most terrifying-for-a-potential-newcomer way possible; these games are by NO stretch of the imagination impossible. But I guess if said player really wanted to get into these games, he/she should prepare for the worst, hope for the best, as they say.

Still, insinuating GB taking bribes from Sony - scratch that - ANYONE is ridiculous. Two minutes research into the genesis of this website will tell you that.

I have a love/hate relationship with the series that is not entirely healthy. Having to "look up everything else" is not ideal for a top-dollar game. The series is niche and hardcore and I think Sony are a bit desperate to promote BB as a system seller, as a lot of people will be disappointed and feel ripped off because of the very high barrier to entry. This is simply not a game for the masses. Almost every one I know IRL who plays games more casually have either avoided the series or given up on it after trying. The invasion mechanic has been kind of asinine in my opinion, because of how loose and unfair the matchmaking has been.

Going offline is less than ideal and at least in DS2 you can be invaded as you're looking to summon help. Some invaders can be so OP that they can wipe out your team (Havel mages, Wrath of the Gods and Forbidden Sun spam are easy examples)... making a mad dash for the boss isn't always an option and looks even less viable in BB, from what I've seen.

There are already some reports of framerate drops, the loading screens after death are loooong and I've seen an instance of a player getting stuck in the environment (as in unable to move).

As others have said, Souls are not for everyone. If the games do hook you though, you are in for one of the most satisfying experiences in video games.

I would say that picking up Dark Souls 1 or 2 instead of Bloodeborne (as an introduction to the style of game) is a great money saving strategy (also utilize the internet for guides - no reason to reinvent the wheel). Regardless, give these games a shot if you have any interest at all.

We're only 3 posts away from this person going on about Puppies.

@johnnymcginley said:

You said the word and now this thread will show up on Google searches. Fuuuuuuuuck.

This thread is weird and passive aggressive? And the fact that you don't really know what this site is but are posting a big thing here? Have you been making the rounds with your write-up or something?

Should probably just sweep this under the rug..

Weird thread. It's definitely not as niche as you're making it out to be. Dark Souls sold over 2.3 mil and DS2 had 1.2 mil in 3 weeks.

And I think you're too late to kill anyone's hype. It's already the best selling game on Amazon for the month and the collector's edition is sold out there. This game is gonna do really well.

Actually it's about ethics in praising the sun.

Look, most people here have a pretty good handle on what games they want to purchase and are smart enough to know what they're buying. This is technically the fourth game in a series that's been around for six years, you aren't going to convince people through your weird, passive-aggressive arguments.

But since you just seem to want people to sell the game back so you can not support From and save some change, I don't think anyone here will take you seriously.

@spiceflow: I get what you're saying, and agree in some aspects. The PS4 is still lacking in games, so people will see Bloodborne's cover, and buy it based on that alone. I get that you're trying to reach the unaware, but it's really on them to not do even a basic cursory glance on a product before purchasing it.

Also while some of these innocent souls will find the game abusive, others may discover they really enjoy it. Either way I don't think From Software is trying to be malicious, they're trying to capitalize on a cult darling. That's not evil, it's just good business sense.

At this point the Souls games have been well documented. So if people don't know what they're getting into at this point, then they will learn that some games punish the unprepared.

I'd like to think by now people know what a from software game is, and whether or not they're going to be into it. These games aren't exactly that niche anymore. At least compared to the early days when it was just good ol' demon's souls. Also...

Hopefully GB is not in a "special relationship" with Sony and this post will not be deleted.

It's kind of funny seeing this block of text given how this site got started. Not that I expect everyone who finds the site to know jeff's professional past though.