Hi folks,
I’m having a blast in this game and compared to more recent similar games (pinokeiro puppets lie twice, dark souls 3, elden ring, hellpoint etc) finding it much less difficult, more comparable to dark souls 1 or demons souls. I don’t consider myself hugely skilled at these games, I couldn’t finish ringed city or lies of p for example.
Reading though it seems there’s a rather polarised perception of difficulty. Some people, many claiming to be highly skilled players, are struggling and others like me seem to find it comfortable.
Discussion around these games is very difficult, as whether something is hard becomes a stand in for validity of opinion and moral character in the flame wars.
Beehaw might be the one place we can discuss this and learn what people are doing differently.
Explicit housekeeping: your feelings are real and valid, you cannot be wrong about finding something hard or easy. I don’t want anyone litigating that.
you don’t need to be particularly good at something to have a valid opinion on whether or not you like something either.
So how are people playing and how are they finding it?
I started as a bucket granny. I have been using short swords, I am currently using a fire/physical split damage Rusty cutter or something, most of my stats are in umbral magic which so far is not very good or useful (20/20 stats, 2 spells from dead eyeball man). I am a methodical slow player, drawing things out with range and baiting enemies into areas I have cleared. I am favouring dodge and parries over blocking. I tend to use mostly 2h hits and kicks with soul flaying big guys. I am at medium armour weight.
I have found the game to feel very similar to ds1 as mentioned, or older monster hunter. Slow inputs, deliberate spacing etc. I would say it feels quite approachable so far although ranged sniping has caused problems in a couple of places I have felt it fair aside from that.
How about you?
I actually love ds1 in its entirity. well until the Lord vessel then the game falls apart. I’m not one for fast paced games (arthritis) and really enjoy the exploration and navigation. Sometimes I just load up a save and run around for a bit to relax :p
I’m not sure my opinion is the one to listen to in your case, given it seems you prefer the later faster gameplay with more emphasis on bosses?
All I can really say is I haven’t enjoyed a souls game much since demons souls and dark souls (although sekiro was quite fun it’s very different) until now. I’m only about 10 hours in on my third area.
I do think many people’s complaints (but not all! there are some very idiosyncratic choices) are from not paying attention. Like recognising when you can pull out the lantern to do something, when you need to fully cross into death, making full use of all the tools (e.g. regenerating ranged ammunition, the map they give you, kicks, mid combo 1h 2h swapping, powerstancing), understanding how the level designers have set traps.
If you try play it like lies of P and just sprint in parrying everything you have a bad time and get swarmed. you also need to engage in the RPG parts more, swapping rings and armour for the current challenge and so on.
I don’t necessarily prefer the faster pace. It’s just that LoP happens to be the first game in the genre, that I’ve played, without major downsides, at least for me.
Everything else has either time wasting, lengthy runbacks or game breaking bosses to artificially increase the difficulty (see Malenia), or is Sekiro.
A modern DS1 like game without the tedium and with some new ideas is very much something that appeals to me. If it has RPG mechanics then all the better, I liked how LoP had perks on top of the traditional, simplistic attribute system and at least some choices.
Everything you say makes me want to play it more 😀