Dark Souls III JP Early Release Thread - Hanzo steel never looked so good

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Dark Souls III JP Early Release Thread - Hanzo steel never looked so good

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Stream spoilers: The cathedral area is pretty badass, Anor Londo exterior-esque (but more run down) outside and you have to climb to the top of it to get inside. Only one bonfire but numerous elevators that go back down to it and allow you to open doors to the interior; basically the DS2 style warp-to-all-bonfires-from-all-bonfires combined with DS1 or Bloodborne's stinginess in actually providing you with them. Surprises on the inside, but the streamer hesitated on pushing on to the boss (which he'd clearly gotten to as NPC summon signs were around) and got cut off. Enemy health is lower than I'd expect, but I'm not sure what part of the game the Cathedral is nor how upgraded the guy's weapon was.

Enemy spoiler: There are leechmen things akin to Leechmonger about. And the slimes from the Depths.

Item spoiler: A lot of DS1/DS2 shields are present, including what is unmistakably the Pursuer's shield.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 19:27

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:48

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

So much of DS3's design style is cribbed from Bloodborne with a more medieval tilt. Whole areas that resemble Hemwick Charnel Lane, the cathedral area takes some serious architectural cues from Yahar'gul. The Berserk influences are also about as strong as they've ever been, especially in Lothric.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 19:34

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Filthy Monkey posted:

Just got home to play. Is there any way to switch the x and circle buttons back around to filthy gaijin mode?

On PS4 there's an option to rebind keys somewhere in the game menu (on the dashboard). It won't change the button prompts but it will switch what the buttons do.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2016 22:12

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

According to the Crestfallen Warrior at one point when you return to Firelink, Aldritch was a saint who had a bizarre tendency toward eating men, and became so corpulent that his form literally dissolved into mush. He became a Lord of Cinder -- or rather, was apparently made to be one, possibly by the Pontiff -- because of his immense power, then was sequestered away in a deep tomb. Somewhere along the way, Aldritch appears to have gone from eating men to eating gods, and I guess Gwyndolin may have been one of them.

The implication seems to be that Aldritch may be mindless at this point, and may even have been manipulated into linking the fire while in a mindless state by his religion, as opposed to Yhorm/Farron/Oceiros who chose to link it.

EDIT: Oh and the boss that's basically Dragonslayer Ornstein + Executioner Smough + The Pursuer and his Moonlight Butterfly Laser Dragon is loving intense.

Nakar fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Mar 24, 2016

# ¿ Mar 24, 2016 03:45

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

I assume that the woman who shows up in Firelink in the White armor is the Darkmoon covenant rep. She appears seemingly after Horace gives you Blue Sentinels and acts like you're not up to her standards, which strikes me as similar to the Blue Sentinels guy in 2 who wouldn't talk to you until you defended someone. I suspect if you do enough protecting or find the item that drops from that, she may invite you into the Darkmoon to punish those who preyed on people the Blue Sentinels failed to save.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2016 17:54

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Oh lord (late boss spoilers) Oceiros, the Consumed King is Ludwig in reverse, and also Seath (crystal lasers, MLGS from his soul etc.). He may also be blind like Old Hero but the streamer didn't seem to notice.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2016 23:30

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

For the guy who wondered whether a bonfire sword could be used as a weapon, it turns out that you can indeed, though it's not the one you get from Iudex Gundyr.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2016 04:29

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Is the Lothric Knight Sword basically just the Balder Side Sword reborn? It's a straightsword, it's Dex-leaning, it seems pretty long. And it's farmable at like the second bonfire.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2016 18:06

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

MrLonghair posted:

I need one more item of infusion, specifically this one:
(Dark)
Where though? Which zones have I not dug through enough. Hm

Try the area near Oceiros, under the stairs in the area with the dark thingies.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2016 02:20

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

So what is the trick to sequence breaking? I assume it's spawning the Dancer fight early? How do you do that, kill Emma, or is it more complex than that? Is it a bug or intentional?

# ¿ Mar 28, 2016 20:38

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Harrow posted:

That's sort of why I'm not 100% convinced it's bugged. I can't think of any other explanation, but it just seems too glaring to be a bug/

Reasons to believe otherwise:

Cracked Talisman of Beasts and Unholy Weapon in Demon's, Power Within in Dark, almost identical issues and well-known.
Raw weapons being bad in the first games and then made inferior to base stats to use every weapon in Dark 2.
Pure Bladestone and the Lizard Staff.
Dark 3 clearly has the same jump physics as prepatch Bloodborne which almost certainly will lead to identical sequence breaks as the coffin skip.

There is every reason to think From just fucks up sometimes and makes the same sorts of mistakes.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 17:47

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

turtlecrunch posted:

Don't trigger me please.

I farmed a Pure Bladestone, no drops can hurt me.

But seriously gently caress the Lizard Staff.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 18:16

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

So do boss souls offer new options on NG+, or is there some additional system, or new drops, or what's the deal?

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 18:23

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Mr. Fortitude posted:

For the most part true, but Raw was great to use on crossbows in Dark Souls 2 because if I remember right, they don't actually scale much at all with any of your stats so they do give a straight boost in damage. So there's that at least.

Any weapon with no scaling benefited from Raw, but only because nothing else was of any benefit in 2. Crossbows, Black Dragon weapons, the Malformed Skull, etc. Mundane could also boost them sometimes but only because Mundane added scaling where there would otherwise be none.

The point of Raw, though, was to give the weapon a boost if you just met the base requirements that was inferior to a properly-developed build that took advantage of the weapons' scaling factors. In Demon's and Dark you could quibble about whether that was of any real use because the Raw boost was so small, but in Dark 2 you could quite literally put Raw on a Longsword you only just met the requirements for and it would lose AR.

If Raw is ~40% more base damage in Dark 3 like people have been suggesting though, holy poo poo. :captainpop:

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 18:42

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Oenis posted:

Late game boss spoiler from THAT area: oboy Aldritch is wrecking my poo poo with their needle attack in the second phase. I run across the whole room in a panic, then get gunned down by perfectly timed purple blasts I can't see coming, or stunlocked by flame trails or purple pellets from running out of stamina or whatever. I've managed to survive it three times, but died when she used it a second time in that fight. Once she had like 10hp left, too. I wonder what their lore implication is, they look a little like Dark Sun Gwyndlin? (Hence why I'm being all awkward with the personal pronouns)

edit: Finally got it. Only way was to pray to the RNG gods to not let them do that attack. I still wouldn't know what to do.

Lore things for that boss: Aldrich was a saint who ate people (which for whatever reason didn't disqualify him from sainthood because Dark Souls) and grew so corpulent his body decayed into a formless mass (which is IIRC the gross floor during the fight). But he also grew powerful, so his church manipulated him into becoming a Lord of Cinder. Having done so, he became so powerful that his appetite led to him consuming gods as well. I don't think he is Gwyndolin so much as he ate Gwyndolin (presumably by heading to Anor Londo and consuming him?), and has incorporated him into his body. It's also possible that he invaded the Painted World and ate, or tried to eat, Priscilla, as his soul can be traded for a spell based on her scythe and powers. However he may not have successfully eaten her because the Darkmoon Captain girl in the hidden tower looks an awful lot like you'd expect a descendant of Priscilla to look (spindly limbs, pale skin, white dress, has a tail). Or maybe Priscilla had kids in the Painted World somehow and Aldrich invaded and ate her and the rest of them fled.

Sources: Hawkwood mentions the dissolution of his body, cinders/soul mention his appetite, Lifehunt Scythe spell mentions his realization of the Painted World.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 19:55

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Kind of interesting timeline issues on that too: Aldrich is probably the oldest of the Lords of Cinder depicted in the game, and was interred in the Cathedral of the Deep after becoming a LoC but possibly before he came to start eating gods. Sulyvahn found the Profaned Flame beneath the tundra of Irithyll, and also must've found Anor Londo and made plans to loose Aldrich on Gwyndolin. Yhorm's act of heroism was to extinguish the Profaned Flame, which was the Chaos Flame of Izalith (demon-related souls and items refer to the "remnants" of the Chaos flame, so Yhorm succeeded), so he must've become a LoC after that (and possibly King of Catarina). When Farron and the Undead Legion show up is unclear but their keep blocks the way to Irithyll so it would seem like later, though they trace their duties all the way back to Artorias and might well have been established following the demise of Oolacile (although more likely after the events of Dark 1 as they don't seem to know about Sif and have conflated Artorias's wolf companion with their own wolf blood rituals). Prince Lothric must be the most recent of the LoCs because of how young he is and that the events of Lothric's fall seem fairly recent too.

The fact that both Eleum Loyce and Irithyll are in tundras and set over the Old Chaos and Anor Londo respectively suggests that as cycles passed Lordran was buried under snow. Since Lordran is "far to the north" per Dark 1, it's possible it was always in a tundra zone and the events of Dark 1 led to its passing into obscurity, the magic of the gods lost and the land reclaimed by the environment. Loyce must've been near the place that became Irithyll, if not proto-Irithyll itself, though there's nothing to suggest the Ivory King knew of Anor Londo. Also the fact the Old Chaos still existed in Dark 2's time means that Sulyvahn must've discovered it after the events of Dark 2. Which makes some sense; you don't destroy the Old Chaos in Ivory King, so it fell to Yhorm to destroy it later.

That said I'm not sure how Aldrich could've eaten Nito, unless Nito somehow survived having his Lord Soul taken by the Chosen Undead in Dark 1. Because the soul itself was loose thereafter, and Nito didn't have the same thing going as Seath appears to, though it's hard to say. If Nito still existed it'd be as a pale shadow of himself by that point, where Gwyndolin seemed to be a god in his full power, if not as grand as his father's.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 20:26

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

nifty1 posted:

Let's talk Sequence breaks. Dark Souls 1 was great with the Master Key allowing you to get to areas earlier.

In Dark Souls 3 there's one very early where you can kill Emma in Lothric's Wall as soon as you meet her allowing you to summon and kill the Dancer boss. This should open up Lothric Castle, Oceiros and Untended Graves? I haven't done it yet but I plan to try on my next character.

I've also seen people say you can use Spook to skip stuff and drop down to some areas earlier. Anyone know of what these might be?

MrLonghair posted:

Falling down on elevators to trigger them coming up works better than ever in DS3

So in addition to the intended sequence break accessing Lothric Castle as early as pre-Vordt, using Spook to reduce fall damage lets you just drop down onto shortcut elevators and the like? What sorts of things can you skip doing this?

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 18:03

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

It seems like 3 does something a bit different from 2 where same class weapons are varied more by build than by moveset, so you get stuff like two early straight swords with distinct scaling from the Longsword but they have more or less the same moveset. Easier to decide what you want and then find a variation that fits the build; e.g. Longsword for Hardened or normal, LKS for Sharp or Refined, Astora for Raw or infused.

Like DS1 but with fewer holes and enough of Demon's and 2's infusions to plug them.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2016 17:33

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Weapon arts are great for finally giving boss weapons unique godlike poo poo instead of incredibly minor benefits that waste a move slot.

And yet regular weapon arts are also incredibly handy. And making the parry or shield bash or whatever an art is an amazing idea for shields. I especially look forward to PC hackers altering a greatshield's weapon art to an instant parry. :getin:

# ¿ Apr 1, 2016 17:40

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

MrLonghair posted:

Save that for when the SL1 playthrough types start showing off

There's already a guy on Twitch doing SL1. Last I saw he was all the way up to Sulyvahn.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2016 22:28

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Okay so Luck builds have a few options and Hollow is so-so, fine. But how good is Item Discovery? Supposedly Luck is +1 per; what do other drop rate items add, to give some idea? If the Covetous Gold Serpent is +100 or something then Luck is kinda lousy for drops, but if it's like +20 then maybe. Does high ID actually help anything? Are Luck builds rolling in Embers and upgrade Stones or does gear drop more often?

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 08:01

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

By the way, Crescent is back, as Simple; not sure how it affects damage, but it has passive FP regen which Sorcery types will probably appreciate. Blessed's HP regen scales with upgrade level so Simple's might also.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 08:23

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

There are three basic ending triggers but four endings. Obviously huge spoilers:

Simplest: Link the fire after beating the last boss by interacting with the bonfire. I believe this ending has no dialogue.
Slightly More Complex: Give the eyes from the Untended Graves to the Fire Keeper and summon her after the last boss. Stand there while she lets the fire die. She will have one final line once it's completely dark, and then credits will roll.
Tricky: As above with summoning the Fire Keeper, but while she's letting the flame die, attack and kill her Demon's Souls Bad Ending style. This gives the ending where your character holds the Flame up to the eclipse and ends with the "ash seeketh embers" line from the narrator. I don't think this one has a trophy.
Most Complex: Do the Yoel/Yuria/Anri questline as Yuria instructs you and you will get the Usurpation of Flame ending, which is quite noticeably different. Not sure if flagging this ending lets you do the other three; once you've committed you might be stuck with it, not sure.

Nakar fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Apr 3, 2016

# ¿ Apr 3, 2016 17:07

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

Gologle posted:

Now let's hope the PC port isn't also following in DS1's footsteps and everything is golden.

We've seen the PC port. It's as good as 2's and better graphically, and has vastly superior frame rate to consoles. The only major performance issues I've heard about are common to all versions.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2016 18:12

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

If Defense works like Bloodborne it's probably a percentage, but Absorption could perhaps be a flat damage reduction. So the stats gained increase slightly the % reduction of damage taken, but the raw damage prevented by armor outweighs that by making you just plain take more damage that the armor otherwise would've blocked. Possibly, anyway. I have to think changes of that magnitude to a smaller number are more meaningful than the small boosts to the Defenses, but what exactly 5-8 points of Absorption do is another matter.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2016 18:24

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

MrLonghair posted:

I'm not feeling bow usage. Unless I need 40 points in dex and craploads of Endurance. There's no infusing bows, no buffing, no nothing, just regular straight up upgrades.

I suspect you're supposed to use specialized bows to some extent. The Lothric Knight Crossbow seems to have base Lightning damage and states in its description that it's made to work with Lightning Bolts. They probably expect a bow user to have several bows with appropriate ammo. Shortbows also have a better weapon art than Longbows for straight-up combat and the lack of infusion might be balanced around the way shots can be spammed, albeit at a cost in FP and Stamina that may not necessarily make this super great damage.

Also I believe the Darkmoon Bow is available with the Soul of Aldrich, so that might be useful in its particular way.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2016 20:21

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

"Kill non-combatant characters without penalty" my rear end, somebody hasn't accidentally hit Hawkwood early in the game!

# ¿ Apr 6, 2016 21:01

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

That or we killed his consciousness in DS1, killed his still-animate but mindless corpse in DS2, and finished off his ownerless armor in DS3. Guy can't catch a break. Also it strongly suggests that Smough canonically dies first, since Smough's lack of reappearance as anything but his gear would be consistent with Ornstein consuming his soul.

Or it could just be a case of time being a jumbled mess and souls and symbols being able to recur throughout history as part of the cycle of souls. The Chosen Undead put Seath's soul in the Lordvessel and it returned to influence Duke Tseldora and Oceiros, the Old Iron King was touched by Gwyn's soul and copied him by building a cathedral-like castle with an army of knights. The mere fact you can get somebody's soul and eat it or turn it into a sword or whatever might not prevent their eventual reincarnation or somesuch. Also things that gain a lot of souls might develop a soul themselves, if Dragonslayer Armour, which is explicitly NOT a person but a suit of armor is any indication.

EDIT: Another example would be the Soul of Cinder, which is the collective consciousness of the "exalted lords" given form. You probably didn't permanently destroy that just because you exchanged it for a Sunlight Spear scroll.

Nakar fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Apr 8, 2016

# ¿ Apr 8, 2016 20:54

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:48

Nakar: Sep 2, 2002; Ultima Ratio Regum

I imagine there is no catalyst that does both hex and pyro scaling well because that would basically be handing Int/Fai builds a "cast everything" button.

They already sound pretty versatile with access to sorceries/miracles/pyromancy plus all dark variants and Chaos and Dark infusions. Having to juggle chimes and gloves and poo poo sounds fair.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2016 19:28

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