Lurker > MariaTaylor

Pirateking2000 posted...

Bloodborne feels like the best balance of being difficult while also being consistent

trick weapons are the main thing that make Bloodborne basically perfect. let's just take a look at the Hunter's Axe for example.

in the base form, I frequently see myself using every single one of these input strings;

R1L1R1L1

R1L1L1

Dash R1

Dash R1, L1

L2R2

L2R1L1R1

if the weapon is transformed in my hands

R1R1

R2R1R1

L2R1R1

Dash R1

Every single thing that I listed here is good for different types of encounters which varies based on the terrain, the number of enemies you are facing, their speed, their poise, their HP, how far away they are, whether you need your gun out, how hard the enemy can hit you and how long their recovery time is, what they do out of hitstun, etc. etc. etc.

Now, let's look at a weapon in Elden Ring. Here's the best input string to use in basically every situation:
L2

(I'm being a bit hyperbolic here with regards to Elden Ring but really Bloodborne is balanced like a fighting game where you have a full moveset at your disposal with combo strings that are match up dependent while Elden Ring most movesets don't even have half the depth of one half of a Trick Weapon)

counting the core games, not Sekiro, bloodborne takes by far the longest to actually master. however, blood vials are so overpowered that it ensures anyone can beat the game even if they are garbage at playing it. leads to a pretty interesting difficulty curve where you can feel like the game is challenging you no matter your skill level. if you're bad at the game, the challenge is just staying alive and spamming blood vials long enough to eventually win any encounter. once you're good at the game it becomes more about avoiding damage entirely, conserving blood vials, learning combos and other optimizations, tackling difficult content that goes beyond the scope of the main game experience, etc. etc.

aside from that I agree that the 'Souls' titles are similar in difficulty, although there are some nuances.

Demon's Souls is the easiest but also the most jank. it's very easy to accidentally throw yourself off a cliff in this game as opposed to the other games. but the bosses tend to have extremely limited movepools consisting of 1-3 attacks and once you learn the extremely simple strategy for each boss it's basically impossible to lose. magic is overpowered beyond belief, and even just carrying a bow around will let you cheese almost every encounter.

DS1 is like 'hard but fair' except it's not actually always fair. the jank hasn't all been completely ironed out and the game design is just silly at times with how certain effects or enemies can lead to a game over scenario with no real defense aside from prior game knowledge; except the jank means that even with prior game knowledge you can still get screwed over some of those times. also a lot of weird things like needing to be cursed to fight ghosts, having way too much space between bonfires, not being able to teleport even though it was possible in demon's souls, etc. etc. I'd rank this one as 'most inconvenient to play'

DS2 is like 'fair, but not hard.' this one probably rates as the easiest but it's also the game that very rarely ever punishes you for things that are out of your control. you can feel the lack of miyazaki's influence on this game and that has both good and bad elements. most of the challenges you face in this game will be telegraphed in very apparent ways and while this does make it somewhat easier than other entries it also can be a breath of fresh air at times. people complain about fighting groups of lots of enemies in this game which is a complaint that I really don't share at all. this is the game that taught me the valuable skill of fighting against multiple enemies, and also forced me to massively improve my camera control skills. I feel like the people who weren't able to develop those skills just complain about the encounters against multiple foes being unfair, but really it actually is fair. you just need to learn how to fight them.

DS3 has a similar design space to DS1 with almost everything polished. there's almost no jank in this game. the unfair situations and deaths are usually telegraphed at least somewhat. I can only think of one example where a trap is completely invisible to the player and then just magically warps into existence behind you (also a trash moment in this game, but it stands out even more because of how much more 'fair' everything else is). kept a lot of the modern conveniences that were introduced in dark souls 2. this game does have one fatal flaw when it comes to difficulty and that is the way difficulty ramps up in the later half of the game. enemies essentially just become larger than you, faster than you, with more reach, more damage, more HP, and they seemingly never run out of stamina. this leads to a boring slog where you're constantly forced to hit and run against opponents that have pretty poor encounter design. this is at it's worst during some of the castle sections that are swarming with knights, most of which are an unfair match up against the player in a 1 v 1, much less in group encounters. combat arts sorta help but honestly most of them suck.

elden ring takes the concept of overpowered, overtuned enemies to the next level, introducing many foes who are even more ridiculous and unfun in their design than the ones featured in DS3. however, there are two major differences; first, these enemies start appearing very early on in the game and are later joined by more and more ridiculous enemies. secondly, you are given tools that make the player character also absurdly overpowered which, in theory, levels the playing field a bit. this is like the touhou of dark souls where honestly the best strategy is probably to dodge the 8 billion projectiles and attacks being thrown at you while you spam your most powerful long range attack in response. kinda sad for the people who prefer to just play with sword and board, but sadly dark souls 3 killed that playstyle halfway through the game, elden ring buried it further, and I doubt it's ever coming back. we are fully in the combat art meta now.

tl;dr

bloodborne - peak game design
demon's souls - not too difficult, sometimes unintentionally unfair
dark souls 1 - difficult, but usually in the most unfair way (relative to other souls games)
dark souls 2 - easy, but usually because it's trying to be fair
dark souls 3 - inconsistent difficulty, encounters become more unfair and players lack the tools needed
elden ring - relatively easy if you're willing to use the tools given to you. nightmare difficulty if you want to play an honest build who never gets a chance to attack between the boss firing 800 lasers at you.

GiftedACIII posted...

Enjoy the direct?

relevant to the most recent discussion, the DQ3 HD remake looks pretty fantastic.

I would love to see more games done in this style since I vastly prefer sprite graphics over realistic 3D renders. this is just pushing the limits of how good sprites can look.

Grimlyn posted...

realizing DQ9 was DS

I had the same experience. in my memory it was definitely a 3DS game, but when I played it for the first time in years I noticed right away that it had the black borders at the edges and the square resolution of the DS...

honestly if the game has one flaw it's that the 'speed' of the game is quite slow. I'm playing on original hardware but I can imagine that similar to the original Pokemon DP, it would benefit massively from being played on a 'console' with speed up function

I love DQ 3 as well and it's one of the main reasons why DQ 9 made such a strong impression on me. it really feels like THE most modern game that was made for DQ 3 fans.

also I want to play more DQM I just don't have the access to the DQM games I want to play right now.

Mega_Mana posted...

I miss Dragon Quest 9

it's a bit sad how much of the game is locked behind wireless features that can't be accessed anymore, but the core game experience is still intact and it's still good at least.

I like dragon quest 9

ugh the copyright system on youtube is so awful toward content creators.

Shattered posted...

I mean trading cards in general are scammy and predatory. It's essentially gambling.

yeah I agree with this. gambling sucks. on the subject, mobile gaming is such a massive, predatory scam. the fact that they are allowed to use the same strategy as a casino to make money, but don't have to follow any of the regulations against gambling in any state or country, and they can even specifically target kids, is insane. the legislation is going to catch up eventually but this is a case where the technology is ahead of the current laws in a bad way.

MZero posted...

okay but who do you think is buying the overpriced toys

kids, who I am against being scammed. as I just said in the post you are replying to.
you must not have noticed it, but try looking really closely at the first 4 words that you quoted.
I don't know how to more clearly say that "I'm against any scams"

Accel_R8 posted...

It's a bad deal but calling it a scam is a stretch.

it is a scam, and it's specifically targeting children who lack the ability to understand what is a good or a bad deal.

the definition of scam is actually extremely broad, and it definitely includes 'selling an item to an unwitting target for 100x the value'

BlueCrystalTear posted...

lmao you compared this board to MENSA

you don't think redrocket is a genius?

Grand_Kirby posted...

What exactly is the definition of a "scam" to people?

whatever definition is more convenient for their current argument.

Leonhart4 posted...

Not all the other options imply you believe it's a scam though

this is true but redrocket is the one claiming there is a CONSENSUS with no statistical backing. I am not claiming anything about there being a consensus. just that his logic is poor.

MZero posted...

I don't get why you're so much more opposed to this than the countless other things that are extremely overpriced from vending machines

I'm against any scams, but I'm especially against scams that victimize people who are incapable of reason and understanding (children, elderly, reddit users)

redrocket posted...

why havent you already contacted the authorities?

it's not my responsibility and I'm lazy

redrocket posted...

I mean, the consensus seems to be that, its scummy, but not legally a scam.

only 10% of people voted 'not a scam' but I guess you have a more interesting way of parsing data than me

Interesting mix of opinions here.

I'm surprised how many people see "Selling an item for 100x the value to someone who is too stupid to make their own financial decisions" as not a scam, but maybe you're imagining these 8 year olds as future mensa members/board 8 users rather than average kids with the brains of a dog.

as close to 0 as possible. I hate when games try to ration my playtime for me. I'd rather play at my own pace.

I have occasionally picked up a game that has some daily elements, but I usually don't stick with them for more than a few days or MAYBE a few weeks.

Grand_Kirby posted...

I kinda doubt even the diner owners would care or understand. You could bring it up with them to find out more about why it was set up and confirm the specifics about it, and then explain why you think it's manipulative to children and see what their response is.

this is basically how I feel about it, yeah. I doubt the store owners would really care if I tried to explain it to them, and it would take a lot of effort, so I don't really want to do it.

Shattered posted...

Trading card stores (and eBay) also buy up bulk to do this. It's not a one off scenario you have run into, these things are all over under many different forms

I know this guy isn't creative or intelligent enough to come up with this scam on his own, but it's still sad that he's scamming random children.

-hotdogturtle-- posted...

The strangest part about this is that a random regular person is allowed to set up a dispenser like that.

this is the part that seems illegal to me. it feels like it probably requires a permit, which I doubt he has. I'm not the kind of person who is going to go out of my way to tattle tale on someone reselling trading cards without some kind of sales permit, but, if you're scamming children that's a different matter.

Uglyface2 posted...

If it bothers you a lot, talk to the owners.

eh, not really 'a lot.' just enough to bring it up here since I figured people on board 8 might find it interesting.

Grimlyn posted...

Eunie shoes

nice !

how accurate are the shoes

Omniscientless posted...

No app is going to make you fluent. Duolingo is great to introduce you to the basics (grammar structures, basic vocabulary, common phrases), but you won't learn anything substantial until you invest on it. The only way to actually speak the language is by practicing speaking. For reading, start with children's stories or other simple media - playing a translated version of a game you're familiar with, for example.

I also agree with this heavily. you need to pick up and learn from a variety of resources and make sure you work on all of your four major skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) equally. if you like DuoLingo, it's fine to keep using it as one of your language learning tools, but you need to show initiative and make effort into learning outside of just spamming DuoLingo lessons if you want to see real results.

If I can give any praise to DuoLingo it's that a lot of questions have a 'topic thread' attached to them which you can view after you answer the question. these user driven discussions usually give a LOT more detail and context which DuoLingo itself does not provide you.his can help a ton with learning. although essentially I'm just praising the people who comment in these threads more than I'm praising DuoLingo itself. knowing the rules for why something is a certain way, and the subtle differences between very similar vocabulary is super important and it's often glossed over by DuoLingo itself. t

BrohanBlanco posted...

In the half hour since i made this topic i downloaded Duolingo and did like 5 levels. i was assuming its so casual and easy because i just started out and theyd ramp up the difficulty and complexity.

it pretty much keeps doing the same thing over and over again. you will very slowly and gradually be introduced to new vocab and stuff but
A. the format never changes
and
B. the amount of time it spends going over the SAME vocab is way, way too long and they never speed up the pace of learning. if anything it feels like it slows down over time.

for learning a language I'd say the best apps are the language specific ones, which make sense. whatever language you are trying to learn, it's best to pick an app that is SOLELY focused on the development and learning of language skills for THAT language. rather than a one-size-fits-all website like DuoLingo.

that being said I have had good experience with Memrise in the past. namely because it contains a library of user created lessons which means that if a user created a good lesson set for your language, you'll have access to that lesson set.

ultimately I still think the best option is to find an app that was specifically created for learning your language. think of it this way; if you wanted to learn baseball would you rather go to baseball camp or "sports" camp?

Grimlyn posted...

well after the judge has made its decision, the jumbotron declares the victory, and everyone's kind of in shock including Ash who's pretty devastated about this loss - HOLD IT calls out Kahuna Hala! As he points out............ Rowlet can still fight!

yes

this was in the group of pokemon episode "highlights" that I saw on youtube. it's definitely one of the most infamous results of all time and peak hilarity.

Maniac64 posted...

Honestly three legit wins (I'm not counting besting Team Rocket) was better than I remembered.

giovani leaving the gym in charge of the least competent team rocket members and ash getting a badge for defeating them is absolutely criminal. league officials should investigate this guy and revoke all of his kanto league wins.

I'd be Poison/Normal probably...

subreddit has active communities for almost anything you can think of. but when you go there it's about an 80-90% chance that the place is filled with people complaining. at least on board 8 there are some people who sometimes have fun and encourage positivity.