Breaking Brad: Breaking Brad: Demon's Souls: Part 02

Wow dude, what a fucking dick. I wonder if he was trolling the stream or just being a dick.

I stopped playing this game because I got lost in the underground area... now I feel like I should go back to it, but I would keep comparing it to Dark Souls - which I thought was a superior game.

Instead I'll just watch Brad play through it. I do wish he took Vinny's insane advice more often though - Brad can be a bit too cautious.

Man, that invading asshole is why I avoid the invasions in these games, even if they can be a fun, tense aspect of the game when running around human. Half of them are interesting encounters and half are just guys intending to grief you with overpowered equipment for your level. The former doesn't nearly make up for the latter to the point where I'd purposefully run around vulnerable to invasion in a starting playthrough. Patrick had Dark Souls invasions similarly ruined by a stream-sniper, though not to the extent of costing him souls by destroying his equipment.

I get so frustrated watching Brad play games. Because he wont use items for their intended purpose. This whole "I might need it later" bullshit drives me nuts. YOU NEED IT NOW! USE IT NOW!

@matatat: I played through Dark Souls using only the whip for fun once. That was pretty hard! In all seriousness, people have done it completely naked and staying at level 1.

Demon's has way more bullshit that people can throw at you while invading. Not only can they heal forever, there's bullshit like the scraping spear and soulsucker. I'm glad they've moved away from those.

At least these are premium videos. While I wouldn't rule out that there could be dicks among the GB premium users, Patrick was streaming openly on Twitch, and probably got noticed by stream snipers due to the large amount of viewers that probably put him among the top Dark Souls streams, if not among the most popular streams over all at Twitch at the time.

The invader dude was not overlevelled, nor was his gear anything special. Brad could've destroyed him if he fought more aggressively. But hey, that's how you get better at the game.

Wow, that invader was a real dick. Just the worst kind of gamer.

Edit: Ha I should've waited til later to comment. Turned out happy.

I'm still unsure how that will actually work. It must be in certain area's or under certain conditions. I can't imagine you can be opened up to invasion 100% of the time. That could effectively break the game to the point where you can no longer progress because you're constantly invaded. They probably have something in place to make sure that won't happen. Perhaps a cooldown? No one knows.

Some of the changes they are making are really shitty for my playstyle though. Gradually decreasing your HP if you die while hollowed doesn't sound great. No more invincible mode while backstabbing and countering? That's 80% of my playstyle gone.

Makes me want to play the game real bad. I want to get my hands on it.

Playing without a FAQ.

Seriously, how many people do you know that finished Dark Souls without a FAQ at some point? Think about how many people you know that normally use a FAQ. It's pretty crazy, the numbers are 100% and 0% respectively for the people that I know.

I played by myself until after Smough and Ornstein. After that, I watched Vinny stream Nito, Seath and Four Kings. Basically a FAQ. I blasted through those parts, finishing those bosses easily. After that, I completed the rest of the game without a FAQ again and it was significantly harder and took a lot more time.

Dark Souls 2; I'm going to try to not use a FAQ. Saying Dark Souls is an easy game while having played it with a FAQ means nothing. It's like saying the puzzles in Portal are too easy to solve when you looked up the solutions.

I call BS on that. He was using the (health-regenerating) Ajudicator's Shield and possibly the Regenerator's Ring. Difficult, but nothing special. That fucking spear, though... it literally has no purpose except trolling people. All it does it break people's equipment. There is no point at which that is useful against NPCs.

@sterling said:

Good, I'm glad someone said it. He's never going to use them later either, and those souls he could have used really aren't worth that much in the late game anyway, so USE YOUR DAMN ITEMS, BRAD!

Although I guess it's good that he went and found his armor instead of wasting souls repairing the broken set. Still, it was only like, what, 2000 souls to repair the armor total? Not counting the coronet. Really not that much.

What a dick "GGRamone" is for just doing that. We shuld just spam his psn that he sucks.

bought it last night because of this stream!

think i'll play along!

Yeah, but the Adj.'s shield regens only 2 HP per second. That is easily overcome in PVP and is really only useful for PVE. Even with the ring it would only be like 6 hp. The Scraping Spear, on the other hand, I agree with you. It literally only exists to troll other players. Is this frustrating and lame? Yes. Is it fair? Well, it's in the game, isn't it?

Well, maybe "immersion breaking" isn't the right way of putting it, or maybe it is. The annoyance you speak of is what distracts me from what I set out to do and makes me acutely aware of the fact there is this other dude sitting in front of his computer that decides to mess with what I'm doing. That's breaking immersion for me, personally. Of course, I can decide to stay hollowed but the advantage of kindling is attractive enough for me to do the thing with the thing only to find out that I have to go through another invasion just because I want those extra flasks. It's just dumb to me and doesn't add anything to my experience of the game, it only detracts from it.

I don't agree with that. Invasions are part of the game. It's not that big of a deal either way, you can just repair your stuff for a very low amount of souls. And you get a large amount of souls if you win.

One of the best parts of Dark Souls is it's online system. It's really awesome.

SHOTGUN? I want one!

Get IN there Brad! That Invasion was in poor form though, I agree.

That ball scene was awesome. And That guy was right, maggots and assholes are gross.

I don't understand their hostility to Thomas

"I remember this place"

I want Vinny to read all of my quotes from now on.

I don't get why Brad doesn't use everything that's available to him. Not using Soul Arrow because he thinks it's cheap just makes him look full of himself.

@paulunga: While other seem to think it's cheap that he's using soul Arrows. Can't win.

Also, invasion might be part of the game, but using that weapon is still a huge move, especially if the guy was stream sniping.

@amyggen: I suppose. But with Souls games I definitely think anything goes. If you find a winning strategy, go with it.

Also, I don't understand his reluctance to spend souls or grindstones on repairs. It's not that much in the long run and him hemming-and-hawing/grinding is fucking awful for something that's supposed to be entertaining content.

@paulunga: He's still new to the guy, he'll learn. I was also really reluctant when I first began playing DeS.

Man what a shitty invader. I don't even really mind long time players invading with good equipment or something, as long as that doesn't constantly happen, but that guy was there just to break people's stuff. What a dick.

@zevvion: Think of it as a sport. Using that weapon to break Brad's stuff would be like tackling a guy in football, but also stepping on his ankle to injure him. It goes beyond "winning" and becomes bullying, or poor sportsmanship.

@gasparnolasco said:

I agree. With a few exceptions, most of the line reads in Dark Souls aren't as good as what I've seen of Demon's Souls.

Wait, what? How is that a justification? Developers have left plenty of things in games that aren't fair, especially when you get no advance notice of invaders and their gear, so you can't even counter their strategy with an equipment change or anything unless you happen to have it at the ready. Just because it is common knowledge (if you read wikis to know the common PvP strategies) doesn't mean the weapon is properly balanced, or is even fundamentally appropriate for this type of game.

That area has made me stop playing the game multiple times :(

More or less. Let's not forget that Dark/Demon Souls was designed with this "information sharing" aspect in it's core. You are supposed to speak to friends or read forums to advance and learn tricks, find better items, etc.

A perfect example is the door to the DLC area in Dark Souls. You'd never stumble upon that without at least some basic direction from outside.

Yup. Seeing that invasion shit, then reading it's going to be a free-for-all in Dark Souls 2 makes me never want to play the game. Fuck that.

The Scraping Spear is just a griefing weapon. There's a reason there's not an equivalent in Dark Souls.

i dont see the big deal about invasions. i like the idea but i dont like being interrupted or having to deal with being invaded, so I just play offline. No player invasions and I can still get the advantages of being human. I will do the same in DS2, so I dont see what the hubbub is all about. Going offline is REALLY EASY with my PS3, just sign out.

Of course, there's no blood stains, messages, or ghosts, but I like the solitary aspect, makes me feel like indiana jones or something, dodging traps by the skin of my teeth, with no clue to whats around the corner. Love it.

Man, what a griefing asshole with that spear. I can understand fighting someone fairly, but messing their stuff up like that is a terrible thing to do.

I totally thought Vinny was shitting him about getting all the loot in front of the dragons. I should play this game again.

He laughs... but I bet he's crying on the inside.

In the bleak and horrible world of Demon's Souls there is one man with a dream: Vinny Caravella, Demon's Souls travel agent. Visit scenic Latria!

Man, that invader can go choke on a dick. Jeez.

If Brad keeps this up I can honestly see this feature running into 2015...

Still surprised to see people excusing invaders like him. Sure, it's part of the game, but they're still deliberately being huge assholes. It's that "don't hate the playa" mentality applied in the dumbest way.

Vinny's dramatic reading of that Undead Dragon quote was fantastic. I was already a fan of that quote, but there's a little extra magic from that Caravella touch.

The invasion was fine but that scraping spear is still a dumb thing. If he'd just killed Brad with a regular weapon then no harm done, just a fun PvP fight. But to leave him so early in the game with all his gear completely destroyed (and with repair costs being much higher in this than Dark Souls) really shatters the pace of things. Thank goodness he found some more equipment when he did.

" Balloons in Assholes", A guide to character design by Vinny Caravela.

Man, ya'll be salty. Both Souls games pop up a big fat notice saying [XXX has invaded your world]. The only time it doesn't is in Dark Souls when you invade/get invaded in the Blades of the Darkmoon Covenant, because you are specifically going after griefers. Now, why would it tell you their equipment? That makes no sense. If it's in the game it's fair comes from a fighting game mentality, and when you are in Demon's Souls PVP, it is a sort of fighting game. The Scraping Spear, while damaging your weapon/armor durability, is balanced by being an extremely weak weapon with a slow, predictable attack. It is useless against normal enemies and therefore was designed solely for PVP. There is nothing more fundamentally appropriate in Demon's Souls than taking advantage of all your resources in order to outsmart your opponent. In these games you have to plan and be ready for any situation at any time. That they're making you invadeable no matter if you're hollow or human in Dark Souls II is proof of that. To everyone that plays solely in hollow/soul form in order to not get invaded because you think its lame or unfair, the devs are sending a clear message: you're playing it wrong.

EDIT: I want to make it clear that while I don't support the invader griefing with the spear, I do think ultimately it is not that huge a deal. You just dust yourself off and move on. Back when I played Demon's this weapon was not a common PVP strategy as the community from the get-go was surprisingly respectful (bowing before fights) and not dicks.

Brad's so adamant about not "cheesing", but from my understanding, aren't a lot of the Souls games about cheesing? Exploiting stuff and level geometry?

Invasions are a part of the Souls games.

An annoying part that I don't understand the fascination with.

Oh well, at least souls are one of the few things that there are always more of.

Dicks ruin everything.

Scraping spear invader a bit of a bummer. Loved Brad getting squished by the boulders though!