Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Flytrap
Apr 30, 2013

Fifteen of Many posted:

Flamelurker :wtc:

Is this one of the two bosses mentioned that gives people trouble because :stare:. I've almost killed him twice now (ended up grinding a couple of levels to get soul arrow on my lil soldier since straight melee seems to be right out) and am using the pillars to play keep away. Does he have some kind of berserk when he's low HP? It seems like my last couple of tries he's one or two soul arrows away from dead but he goes into this frantic combo mode where it's just nothing but fire all the time and I'm stunned until dead.

You want a really high upgraded weapon for him, with some SWS slathered on it for more damage.

Though there is a trick if you have enough spice with them Soul Arrows. When you start the fight,goad him towards you. Then, run past him to the stairwell behind him, run up it, and place yourself in the back corner behind the debris. You may have to do this a few times, but when you do it right, it shatters his AI and you're free to hit him with ranged attacks with impunity. Just be ready to dodge out of the way and restart the cycle if his AI fixes itself for a second.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



lordfrikk posted:

I actually killed Flamelurker on my first try as a melee guy, but I think I used about 50 crescent moon grasses in the process :catstare: Using the sticky white stuff (eww) helped a lot.

He's not really that hard, especially if you're going into it from Dark Souls 1/2. Dunno that I've ever died to him even though he's like the only boss I've never cheesed, the true boss is the shortcut down the shaft. But yeah, Flamelurker and the final boss of Boletaria are the two people tend to get stuck on.

Also the intro music in Demon's Souls is great. :colbert: It has the best intro cutscene, the best lore, the best aesthetic, the best hub, and the best opening areas. 1-1 is way better than the burg or the forest.

KaneTW
Dec 2, 2011

He was really easy with a Sticky Compound Long Bow but that's basically cheating.

Fifteen of Many
Feb 23, 2006
I think some of the problem I was having initially was that the speed with which he can close the gaps on you made it hard to learn his pattern without him turning around and stun-lock killing me. Once I stuck a pillar between us it was better, although I'm still not sure how I'd manage mano y mano without some kind of exploitas a pure melee. It seemed like when I got close enough and on his side enough to hit him once, by the time my attack animation was wrapping up he was winding up for the next round of murder with very little downtime.

:shrug: Either way, he's dead. Good God, Fool's Idol was such a pushover after lurker.

Fifteen of Many fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Sep 14, 2014

v1ld
Apr 16, 2012

Fifteen of Many posted:

I'm still not sure how I'd manage mano y mano as a pure melee. It seemed like when I got close enough and on his side enough to hit him once, by the time my attack animation was wrapping up he was winding up for the next round of murder with very little downtime.

My 1st run was pure melee and this fight eventually devolved to getting enough strength to keep the Purple Flame Shield between us at all times. The better melee strategy is to use the big explosion AOE as opening to go to town with whatever two-handed weapon of choice.

There was one video response to a Flamelurker no-shields challenge on youtube that had some speedrunner doing perfectly timed rolls through the AOE attack. I can't find it anymore, pity, but does anyone know the vid I'm talking about? This other one's pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORi1f463WeM

lordfrikk
Mar 11, 2010

Oh, say it ain't fuckin' so,
you stupid fuck!
I just did it as without a shield because I didn't want to look up where to obtain one with fire resistance, and it's relatively simple once you get the roll timings down pat. Fume Knight taught me well :f5:

lordfrikk
Mar 11, 2010

Oh, say it ain't fuckin' so,
you stupid fuck!
Alright, yesterday I finished the last world (Valley of Defilement) and I have to say 5-2 is my least favourite of all the iterations of the poisonous swamp area archetype. From the most likeable to least likeable it's: Blighttown, Gutter and Valley of Defilement. To be precise, though, it's only the second area that I dislike because you can't see too far at all, so you're sort of wandering around. And then there's the meat cleaver black phantom that can roll while you can't and when you do you get stuck in the unable-to-roll animation and probably killed.

I'm really glad they decided to ditch the item encumbrance in the later Souls games. I will concede it made me use the stash for the first time and I actually had to think what to take with me in order to have space for armors I might find (goodbye Brushwood Armor).

Some of the boss runs where amazingly agonizing. Maneater was probably the worst because the black phantom Mindflayer is a super-dick. The regular ones are easy enough but he left little space in between casts for me to attack, I think he actually killed me more times than the boss, welp. I ended up casting Warding and wrecked him with Quality Kijil+5 with SWS.

Penetrator's twin pirouette never ceased to botch up my roll and get hit. Dirty Colossus and Leechmonger were probably the easiest bosses, Old Hero and Old Monk weren't hard at all, too. Maiden Astraea was an amazing encounter, more of those (I'm glad I was smart enough to take a bunch of Widow's Lotuses with me, I was expecting something to give me plague any minute once I found it).

The last thing I did was try to kill Old King Doran but he's a seriously buff guy, once he wielded his sword in two hands the proverbial poo poo hit the fan. I emerged victorious in the end but it was one of the most nerve-wrecking fights I had in the game.

In terms of weapons and armor, I ended up using the starting Rapier along with Kilij and Uchigatana (but mostly the first two). I crafted the Meat Cleaver but didn't like the moveset at all (tbh I didn't like any of the heavy weapon movesets, too many vertical smashes for my taste). I brought the fashion souls mindset with me to DeS so I just ended up wearing what looked best: Three-cornered Hat (seriously the best looking wizard-y hat in all the Souls games), Rogue's Clothes and Rogue's Boots and Silver Bracelet.

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



While I agree that the poison swamp sucks, unless you go off the incredibly obvious trail there is no getting lost or wandering around. There is some nice stuff out there though (I believe the item you need to make the Blueblood Sword is being guarded by that Meat Cleaver phantom, plus the Large Sword of Moonlight is a pure white tendency event).

You can poison Doran.

Also the vertical attacks are the best part of any big weapon so you're a crazy person. :colbert: You can stunlock or outright kill nearly everything with that.

neetengie
Jul 17, 2013

Shittiest taste in anime and video games.

Manatee Cannon posted:

While I agree that the poison swamp sucks, unless you go off the incredibly obvious trail there is no getting lost or wandering around. There is some nice stuff out there though (I believe the item you need to make the Blueblood Sword is being guarded by that Meat Cleaver phantom, plus the Large Sword of Moonlight is a pure white tendency event).

You can poison Doran.

Also the vertical attacks are the best part of any big weapon so you're a crazy person. :colbert: You can stunlock or outright kill nearly everything with that.
No, there are some items behind Meat Cleaver girl, but you can find the item for the Blueblood Sword pretty easily in multiple places.

Also while Valley of Defilement makes you slow as poo poo, have the Regen Ring on and your HP will drain really, really slowly.
e: Well slower than usual, the poison HP drain is already pretty slow compared to Dark Souls.

neetengie fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Sep 17, 2014

v1ld
Apr 16, 2012

lordfrikk posted:

Maneater was probably the worst because the black phantom Mindflayer is a super-dick. The regular ones are easy enough but he left little space in between casts for me to attack, I think he actually killed me more times than the boss, welp. I ended up casting Warding and wrecked him with Quality Kijil+5 with SWS.

Maneater's majesty is not dimmed by some random mindflayer you should be backstabbing, black, blue or red phantomed it be.

Maneater is the reason for Warding and Second Chance being in this game.

Maneater is the reason they let invaders play the final boss - they wanted to make it easy in comparison, like all the other final levels.

quote:

Penetrator's twin pirouette never ceased to botch up my roll and get hit.

Biorr had a twin, but doesn't pirouette.

lordfrikk
Mar 11, 2010

Oh, say it ain't fuckin' so,
you stupid fuck!

neetengie posted:

Also while Valley of Defilement makes you slow as poo poo, have the Regen Ring on and your HP will drain really, really slowly.
e: Well slower than usual, the poison HP drain is already pretty slow compared to Dark Souls.

Yeah, this is the only thing that made it bearable for me. I think the regen ring is a bit too good, no wonder they mostly did away with it in the later games. Warding is way too good as well, it makes most of the bosses a complete joke.

Gann Jerrod
Sep 9, 2005

A gun isn't a gun unless it shoots Magic.
I agree, I think I might have made it too easy with my Blessed Mirdan Hammer build. As long as I slap on the Adjudicator's shield in between fights, I'm usually back to full heath by the next encounter.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless
I've been enjoying watching a German named Dante and some probably chubby goth chick named Holly play through Demon's Souls. They're doing everything coop so of course there are parts that they should suffer badly on but do okay just by spamming R1 attacks (they both quickly settle on using their Dragon Long Swords so they get extra stagger that way too), but they are going at things blind and aren't using magic. The loving tears that Stonefang tunnel produced were great. Really great. Also Dante has the worst Demon's Souls intuition of anyone I've ever seen so he's often getting told to do something by his phantom, which is the right thing to do, and he ignores it and keeps bashing his head into a wall.

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2A7e3GEY_7tlRO_1My6lhl1i5zCheXNg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J13r2W9VyKM&t=2068s

This cuts to the Flamelurker meltdown so if you don't want to hear a German yell at a videogame in English don't click it. Their first tries at Tower Knight were also hilariously bad.

raton fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Sep 18, 2014

Read
Dec 21, 2010

On a related note, Kay of Kay Plays did a Demon's Souls run a while back. Not sure if it was posted here but it's wonderful.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu3T-57vLRVEjF8viOEjm9g

e: There's a screamer (this is still a thing apparently??) in the first like 20s of the next episode of that guy's LP, if anyone is bothered by those.

Read fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Sep 18, 2014

lordfrikk
Mar 11, 2010

Oh, say it ain't fuckin' so,
you stupid fuck!
Since we're recommending vids, I think you would enjoy someone talking at length about Demon's Souls. The guy's name is Matthewmatosis and his commentary is very insightful and intelligently put. There is no screaming, memes or poo poo like that, but I guarantee it is worth your time :v:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLItPEpkK7A

I even went and watched his other videos, they are all equally good. He also did one for DSII but none for DS1 as far as I know.

EC
Jul 10, 2001

The Legend
Two recs for LPs and neither is fellow goon WanderingNewbie's? Shame on y'all.

EC fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Sep 18, 2014

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



That shouldn't even be necessary, when looking for an LP you should always check the LP Archive first.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless

EC posted:

Two recs for LPs and neither is fellow goon WanderingNewbie's? Shame on y'all.

Squint uber alles

I liked the Wandering Newbie episode where he got killed like six times in a row by the invader. I tried to invade him a few times but never got through.

EC
Jul 10, 2001

The Legend

Sheep-Goats posted:

Squint uber alles

I liked the Wandering Newbie episode where he got killed like six times in a row by the invader. I tried to invade him a few times but never got through.

Pretty sure that was LotusGramarye, aka Genocyber.

VERY GOOD

Genocyber
Jun 4, 2012

EC posted:

Pretty sure that was LotusGramarye, aka Genocyber.

VERY GOOD

He got fairly mad cause I kept knocking him off Latria with the Stormruler. :allears:

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless
Right through his stupid spell spamming phantom and everything. I was SO HAPPY

Fifteen of Many
Feb 23, 2006
Maneaters :psypop:

I've come so loving close about three times now. I came within one hit at least once but got knocked off the platform. I killed one then had the second get stuck under the bridge another time. I'm pure melee and the trouble I'm having without question is if I don't kill the first before the second spawns (I come close most attempts) they get stuck on each other's asses and I can't get them apart long enough to finish the job.

When I kill these fuckers it might be the most satisfying thing I've done in video games.

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



Turpentine would help if you're committed to melee. They're weak to fire.

Fifteen of Many
Feb 23, 2006
As usual, complaining on the forums does the trick! I'd been using turpentine all along; it was just the old "use patience on this foe" that I needed. So with those jerks and flamelurker out of the way, the "worst" (best, I'm a masochist) is behind?

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



Nah, False King is harder than either of those assuming you aren't abusing Poison Cloud.

Fifteen of Many
Feb 23, 2006
:getin: I love the Souls games.

Flytrap
Apr 30, 2013

Manatee Cannon posted:

Nah, False King is harder than either of those assuming you aren't abusing Poison Cloud.

Man, I don't know why the Hell everyone considers False so difficult, he's never once managed to actually kill me. You'd have to face six of them at on e with a broken sword to make him half as difficult as the Flame Lurker.

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



And I think Flamelurker is a pathetic joke of a boss, but that's video games for you.

Fifteen of Many
Feb 23, 2006
Trip update! All of the world 4 clear with no deaths. Figuring out how to melee the storm king was badass. Step down in difficulty but all still very fun. The atmosphere in these worlds is so good.

Full Battle Rattle
Aug 29, 2009

As long as the times refuse to change, we're going to make a hell of a racket.
Dark Souls 2 - best gameplay
Dark Souls - best story
Demon's Souls - best atmosphere/world

imo

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

Full Battle Rattle posted:

Dark Souls 2 - best gameplay
Dark Souls - best story
Demon's Souls - best atmosphere/world

imo

I agree with this totally. I'd kill for a From-made Demon's Souls 2 that plays more like the Dark Souls games, but at the same time I don't mind Bloodborne being its own thing at all. I like how From has experimented a lot with a solid core idea over the years across King's Field, Eternal Ring, Shadow Tower, Otogi, Demon's and Dark Souls and now Bloodborne.


The trick with the false king Allant is that he holds his sword hand at a different angle for each attack. So a lot of his stuff is actually much more telegraphed than you'd think at a glance.

Flamelurker might be the coolest fight in the game though because of how as his life decreases he goes from ignoring you to getting bored with you and wandering off occasionally to being in your face doing that huge explosion punch over and over forever until he dies.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless

Full Battle Rattle posted:

Dark Souls 2 - best gameplay
Dark Souls - best story
Demon's Souls - best atmosphere/world

imo

I agree, however there are three trump cards I want to put down:

Demon's has Flamelurker and that's a better fight than any other. It's taken them up until Fume Knight to make a boss that requires you to learn multiple new things at once (before Flamelurker your shield fixes everything, stamina management isn't an issue and most enemies were easily interruptible between attacks) but Fumey has a little bit too much HP to be as good a fight as Flamelurker. Big points to From for Fume though -- it's the first enemy in the Souls series that really punishes roll spam which is the one tactic they'd never gone after.

Demon's doesn't have a jump command which is like loving mana from heaven. Every goddamn area in DS2 has some stupid loving jump I have to make, then have to get back over from. If I hollow before the Shrine of Winter it's 90% because of this platforming in a non-platforming game that I have to do. There's still platforming in Demon's but it's just dropping or rolling off of edges and each move doesn't require an airfield before takeoff.

There is not a better story moment in videogames than when you approach Astraea after killing Garl.

----

Demon's also has a much snappier feel than the other two which makes for less tactical stuff in fights (which is bad) but which just feels good (which is nice). People forget about this too but most of the levels were Shrine of Amana long at least -- I remember getting through 4-2 for the first time and being so loving desperate to just beat the boss so I didn't have to run the gauntlet again.

The only thing that keeps me from outright saying DS2 is the best in the series though is loving Soul Memory. I understand it for the sake of preventing the earl game from becoming a perpetual noob gank since they also made you open to invasion at any time, but they either need to make it only apply to NG or just have a lot more tiers after 12M souls or have a fightclub covenant where only soul level matters. Or put in some guantlets that prevent you from ever gaining souls or something.

Neo Rasa posted:

The trick with the false king Allant is that he holds his sword hand at a different angle for each attack. So a lot of his stuff is actually much more telegraphed than you'd think at a glance.

My "trick" for Allant is to always keep a middle-long distance. I'm pretty sure someone in this thread told me to do this after I complained about him. Just enough that he either really wants to charge or really wants to nuke. If you fight him up close he can be pretty difficult. I had a lot of trouble getting past him on my SL1 run, almost didn't finish it.

Maneater can just be brutal though. Sometimes they just loving chain pounce you and there's nothing you can do about it. I helped a goon out one time who just couldn't get past them on NG+ -- turns out if you put on every piece of spell boosting gear and then hit the first one with Firestorm you can do so much damage that he dies and his brother dies in one shot. I ran across the bridge trying to get ahead of my host and the first Maneater was just dicking around by the fog door. I had planned to just shoot fireballs and roll around but brought Firestorm because I had slots for it and thought I might as well give it a go. BAM -- fuckoff.

raton fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Sep 25, 2014

EC
Jul 10, 2001

The Legend
Sheep-Goats did you change DS2's default jump button (pressing down on the left stick) back to DS1's default (pressing B while running)? I did that at first, but later changed it back to LS and have never had a problem jumping since. The timing for shorter jumps (like the Estus upgrade on the way to Chariot) is much more forgiving that way.

And yeah, DeS definitely has the best atmosphere out of the three.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless
I did the same thing -- changed it and then changed it back.

The last two times I did that jump before Horse Boss my guy merrily lept over the gap, hit the wood, and rolled off the other side. I was specifically trying to avoid doing that. I also do the Gutter run after Dragonrider or so on most of my guys because I want the pyro set and the free chunk and the branch and despite having done it maybe 30 times now it's basically 50/50 whether or not I'll make it on that one wall to wall jump. Dark 1 was like that for me too but in that game they didn't insist on having JUPARING PUZZARU once per sub area. And also have non-navigable shin high barriers. You could mantle in Demon's -- why get rid of that?

Oh also Agility was a bad idea. It's just a dump stat that everyone is required to pour points into to have a reasonable character, especially given how many more bosses in DS2 have long attack frames or sweeping attacks made to catch you in your 85 agility roll. Rolling is never optional in a souls game -- everything else, even endurance, is. Maybe there should be a third challenge ring that makes everything except your weapons invisible that you get for doing a playthrough without rolling :iamafag: It could have been an interesting trade off for PVP but Soul Memory fixed the idea of there being any interesting trade offs in PVP.

Anyway AGL is what keeps me from trying a sl1 run in DS2 -- I really don't want to spend the necessary time to develop the roll timing responsiveness and acumen of a chihuahua smoking meth. Really makes me miss the generous iframes and snappy rolls in Demon's.

raton fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Sep 25, 2014

TheWanderingNewbie
Oct 12, 2007

Gotta Get Dem Cheevos

Genocyber posted:

He got fairly mad cause I kept knocking him off Latria with the Stormruler. :allears:

Just chiming in on this, the ONLY reason I got pissed was cause I was going on vacation the next day and needed to get to editing that night, hahaha. Looking back it was funny as poo poo and one of these days I might go back and do an unedited version of all those encounters so yall can see just how pissed I was getting.

Fifteen of Many
Feb 23, 2006
Well I beat Demon's Souls! I feel like these games have seriously ruined other video games for me. There's a feeling to playing them that's just unparalleled. So good.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless
You haven't really beaten Demon's Souls until you get through NG+ with melee only. Serious post.

Probably shouldn't use any shield as good as Knight's or better really either.

Flytrap
Apr 30, 2013

Sheep-Goats posted:

You haven't really beaten Demon's Souls until you get through NG+ with melee only. Serious post.

Probably shouldn't use any shield as good as Knight's or better really either.

I've done that. It's significantly easier than the base game since you're starting off with a kickass weapon

Genocyber
Jun 4, 2012

Fifteen of Many posted:

Well I beat Demon's Souls! I feel like these games have seriously ruined other video games for me. There's a feeling to playing them that's just unparalleled. So good.

Now go play the King's Field games. Start with 4; it's not connected to the previous three, is probably the most influential game on the Souls games aside from Shadow Tower Abyss, and it is actually fairly pretty (especially if you emulate it and run it at higher than native resolutions).

Sheep-Goats posted:

You haven't really beaten Demon's Souls until you get through NG+ with melee only. Serious post.

Probably shouldn't use any shield as good as Knight's or better really either.

Not really. Melee is just as broken as magic if you use the right weapons, ng+ isn't all that harder than ng, and non-greatshields aren't that useful period.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



NG+ is always a lot easier than NG in the Souls series since you're set up already (most of the difficulty comes from learning the enemies and the environment anyway), but if you keep going eventually things will outscale you. Then it starts becoming challenging again, though "enemies have more health/defense/damage" isn't a particularly fun way to increase difficulty to me.

  • Locked thread