Healing is a staple of any soulslike. From the very beginning, Demon’s Souls introduced healing items to the genre to fight off the dangers of the world. The healing items were consumable, however, forcing the player to either get good enough to use fewer healing items or find spots to farm the various levels of healing items to have a stash.
Dark Souls ditched the types of consumable grass and instead introduced the Estus Flask - the healing item that comes with several healing charges which auto-refill when you rest at a bonfire or die.
Apart from Bloodborne, which had Blood Vials (controversial), Estus Flasks or similar have become a mainstay of the genre. But which of these are better for the game and which do you prefer?
Estus Flasks come with limited charges, but they refill automatically, so you don’t have to farm healing items and can just focus on the boss fight that’s giving you trouble. Consumable healing usually comes in larger quantities (20 Blood Vials plus a couple extra if you use specific runes), so you have more healing at your disposal in a boss fight, hence you can be more aggressive and reckless, but you run the risk of running out of healing at some point, so you might have to farm them at some point.
Thoughts?
Consumables that restore on rest are vastly superior to ones that don’t.
I don’t want to go farm for consumables. I almost never use any of the ones like ember, humanity, divine blessing, weapon buffs. They’re somewhat rare so I don’t use them by default, and then they’re not part of my toolbox.
I kinda like both? The real advantage of Bloodborne’s system is that you can find more Blood Vials in the world. This massively helps in area traversal, since you can just keep going. Out of heals? Just kill that troll or big werewolf and you can keep going. It creates a nice risk-reward strategy. The problem is just that in Bloodborne you can generally run out of Blood Vials. I wish it worked like in DS1, so that when you visit the Hunter’s Dream, your vials always refill to at least 10 (maybe upgradable with Insight?).
Still no Soulslikes for me this weekend… Lots of train travel. I play a bit of Pokémon Heartgold on my phone, now there is a game where healing is no problem for the player.
@v4ld1z@lemmy.zip also no Soulslikes for you this weekend? Are you still stuck on Slay the Spire 2? (That game does look quite fun.)
Now that you mention it, that does aid in exploration quite a bit.
Honestly, there’s a lot worse you can do than play Heartgold. Handsdown one of the best Pokemon games.
Nah, I don’t really have anything to play right now in terms of soulslikes. Everything I’m interested in I’ve either already played (several times sometimes) or it’s on PS5, and I’ve kinda given up on console gaming and moved over to PC gaming primarily. I did replay Sekiro and Lies of P there too, but I don’t feel like delving into any of the Dark Souls titles right now. Slay the Spire 2 and League of Legends are occupying my brain atm, yes :D
I like the Estus system—it gives you a lot more room to experiment and have fun with the game. Getting more consumable heals just feels like grocery shopping.
I like Dark Souls 2’s mixed system the most (I’m one of the 5 weirdos who actually enjoys that game the most out of the Souls trilogy). You start off with a very limited Estus count but can supplement it with consumable Lifegems and healing miracles (makes especially those feel so much more valuable). I liked DS2’s approach to consumables the most in general, they were powerful and pretty useful for all kinds of builds but never necessary, it added that extra RPG element to the game of using consumables to help you overcome some of the harder moments while still letting you win through sheer skill if you choose.
I am all in on the flasks resetting at a bonfire. In fact I wish all consumables were like that.
One of the few things I really liked about the Witcher 3’s mechanics was how (if I remember right) the consumables reset in a similar way estus does. You found or crafted the thing and then the items you find around the world were used to upgrade them. It was a nice balance - you still search the world for the upgrade materials but once you have the item you can use it knowing you can easily refill it.
Biggest reason for me is that it is annoying to have to farm for items and I could see myself trying out a wider variety of builds based around the various consumables in the games if I didn’t know I’d have to grind to replenish the supply however often. I am also the kind of player that never uses consumables because ‘what if I need it later?’ and this would rectify that problem too.
The Surge has the best healing system IMO. First off, it’s got options. You can heal a medium chunk at once, or a bigger amount over a period of time. You can even swap out the healing utility for a different utility altogether or use both healing tools at once. Next, you get X charges every rest/reset, but you can also gain more by attacking something and building up energy.
But altogether, all of them are light years ahead of LOOSE WALL MEAT like in NES and SNES classics.
I’ve got a DS3 run on the go that I might finish. Just need to beat the Ringed City bosses minus Demon Twins, and Old Demon King because I forgot about him.
I think the refilling Estus system is best overall. Farming for heals in Demon’s Souls kinda sucked imo, especially when I got stuck in a few places and burned through all my grass.
I did like the lifegems in DS2 and their contrast to Estus, especially how the gems healed less but let you still walk while snorting them, versus the Estus making you stand still but healing more overall.
Refillable heals over consumables any day, but I’ll always love combining HP regen over time and heal on crit passives.
I’ll be finishing up my third playthrough of Lords of the Fallen this weekend, getting the umbral ending with an umbral build. Fungal pickaxe + poison weapon + bloodbane ring + the umbral eye that boosts your damage in exchange for turning it all into wither type melts just about everything, and most of the spells are pretty good too.
After that, might try dusting off Elden Ring after seeing that post a few days ago about multiplayer activity actually being good with the seamless mod. Anyone have favourite invasion spots?
I like the OG, and enjoy the hacks that let the charge beam gather health in Super Metroid
the grass system was something I enjoyed a lot in DeS. expensive yes, but I liked being able to heal different amounts and it puts some good pressure on performance when you run out of the good stuff and you gotta make do with whatever you have. The game is not super hard so I never felt the need to farm, otherwise it would probably be terrible.
Consumable heals are a tiny annoyance in bloodborne when staring a new run, but not significant, if I could edit the game I would change other stuff first, like weapon durability or fast travel, etc.
Estus is maybe too comfy in DS 1/ 3 but really appreciated in Elden Ring and others of similar difficulty
I’ll be playing more Enotria, I didn’t progress much this week. Only to the 4th major boss I think. This area is probably my favourite so far.
Also restarted DS3, I was planning to rush it but I wanna keep progressing some character quests so I’ll have to do a bunch of side stuff again
So I’ll be bouncing between the two.
I think the only thing that makes Estus too comfy in DS1 is the kindling. You can definitely get too many flask charges in a game whose bosses aren’t that difficult to begin with. They struck a better balance in later games I think.
Which area did you go to in Enotria? I think you can go to either of two options after clearing the first area. It really does have some wonderful environments.
Also glad to hear you return to DS3. It’s a great game. I don’t love everything about it but it does have some great moments and great bosses.
I went to Falesia Magna, did the grand statue area and reached Veltha. haven’t beat her yet tho, shes tough. I’ll have to mess a bit with the loadouts but the colossal poison sword is going to be the strat, I think.
I love a dark nook in an otherwise sunny area. (I can almost smell the saltpeter, it’s great). and the enemies are a bunch of hot guys in uniform, showing legs? and the ocational guy in full plate? sweet. I like the reverse trope with the gals being all ninja and shit, but some scantily clad ladies would have been a welcome sight as well. in general I notice a lack of ladies in this game. :(
I’m still trying to figure out my feelings about DS3, theres plenty to like, but it is missing some quirkyness, and charm of the first. feels too refined in a way… idk, but it’s still very fun!
Veltha was tough! I remember struggling with her a bit too. Bosses with a lot of ranged attacks are often tough because you can’t use spacing as much. She’s pretty fast too. Speaking of the colossal sword one thing I really liked about Enotria is that you can refund weapon upgrade materials fully as long as the weapon isn’t maxed out. So you can really experiment a lot with weapons without needing to grind. What kind of build are you doing?
And yeah Falesia Magna has some really nice vistas. The statue cave was great and I also like that you had a lot of verticality in the pathing, climbing up and down scaffolding and cliffs and buildings with multiple levels. It’s always a cheat code for making the level design feel impressive to me, haha. And I really like the ancient Rome theming, very appropriate for Italian Souls.
On the subject of women I hadn’t thought about it but yeah, maybe there aren’t too many female enemies actually. You’ll get some in the next area, but they’re not scantily clad. In fact, I don’t think there are any scantily clad women in the game at all.
Yeah that could be a way to describe it for sure. It’s definitely more polished and streamlined.
I also miss the open ended world in DS3, I know it’s a common complaint but the linearity does earn negative marks from me. Fast travel from the get-go emphasises this, and further reinforces the feel of the game as a long sequence of hallways with checkpoints rather than a connected world. Some of the areas are great though, like the Cathedral. I also am not a huge fan of the super washed out, desaturated almost sepia look of the game, I think they went a step too far just in terms of look.
Also some of the enemy design is a little unfun to me. A lot of enemies are too fast, too long combos, irregular attacks, spammy, spastic… I don’t know just not enjoyable to fight. Mostly talking about regular enemies here, the bosses are good for the most part.
you can refund weapon upgrade materials
Not being tied down to build, weapon and play style is great. I already bailed on a couple of early weapons with that sweet refund mechanic
What kind of build are you doing?
I settled on… Quality, (gasps!) sort of. ( one loadout is big bonk + status, one dex w/ polearms, and the other one I’m wasting) I’m vanilla.(ᴗ_ ᴗ)
On the subject of women…
I found the gals! I went to check out the other area after Veltha, I was beginning to wonder if women were barred from the arts in this world or what XD. Quinta is a sausage fest.
Since regular enemies are not monsters or undead the lack of fem energy was a lot more noticeable, I guess? T’was probably a budget thing.
extra blah
I do champion the lack of unnecessary sexualization tho, props to the devs. But being at sea side with enemies rocking roman military fashion… it’s a missed opportunity to not have some hot warrior women serving the badass goddess tbh, :P but perhaps that would have read too greek. hummm, but maybe not if we keep the guys, and it’s fantasy after all… Ok I’m spiraling.
Question for you. How did you fare with the parrying in this game? It’s so unforgiving, perfectly parrying a combo string is hard. Haven’t found the cool all parrying gem either (¯ -¯).
I settled on… Quality, (gasps!) sort of. ( one loadout is big bonk + status, one dex w/ polearms, and the other one I’m wasting) I’m vanilla.(ᴗ_ ᴗ)
Hah, pretty much opposite me then. The elemental system and the mask lines were the unique gimmicks of the game so I went all in on those. I grabbed a stamina node from the Assassin tree I think and barely any from the Bruiser, the rest went left and top of the tree. The Battlemage talent where using a mask line has a chance to instantly change another is super fun to use.
Since regular enemies are not monsters or undead the lack of fem energy was a lot more noticeable, I guess? T’was probably a budget thing.
I didn’t really register it, but yeah now that you mentioned it I guess there aren’t any female enemies in Quinta huh. Let’s chalk it up to budget I guess.
It is nice though that there are no chainmail bikinis or other needlessly oversexualized stuff like that on the women characters, I agree with that. But yeah some warrior women in service of Veltha wouldn’t have been out of place.
Question for you. How did you fare with the parrying in this game? It’s so unforgiving, perfectly parrying a combo string is hard. Haven’t found the cool all parrying gem either (¯ -¯).
It was a mixed bag I guess. It felt tough at times for sure. Funny enough some of the regular enemies were worse for me than bosses in terms of parrying. Lumberjack overhead axe smash and the spear wielding fishermen in Falesia Magna would get me all the time 😅 The halberd automaton too with the delayed attack. Eventually I learned which enemies I’d parry and which I would avoid trying to. I wasn’t above using the laser staff in the second half of the game either if I was struggling with an enemy or boss. Since it scaled with status power it did a ton of damage with my build, and I could be safer and keep distance more. Same with some mask lines. I also used consumables a lot against bosses when appropriate.
It felt good when it did click though. I really liked the sound effect for the parry, very nice and clangy. And most of the time for bosses I would get there eventually. Spaventa for example was one where I got dialed in on the parries and it felt really good. Was probably my favourite boss in the game.
No Soulslikes for me this weekend, I am still on the Withering Rooms kick I’ve been on for the last two weeks or so. I finished my first playthrough today, got an ending I think might be canon (considering the upcoming sequel) and then immediately went into NG+. There is an extra ending exclusive to NG+, and I’m curious to see what that payoff is like. So far the NG+ experience has been pretty remixed, so it feels somewhat fresh. Also feels snappier - certain puzzles and story beats seem removed in NG+ so it might play a lot faster. There are also some new and pretty cool mechanics introduced.
Overall I can’t say enough good things about this game. The world building, the exploration, the story, the art direction, the vibes, the mechanics… It’s such a good and unique game.
Great to hear you liked it so much!, I have it lined up for when I finish these current playthroughs.
I hope you’ll like it as much as I have! I promise you’ll get used to the clunky combat eventually, and everything else in the game is just top tier. For a solo dev game it’s just so impressive and I’ve loved every second of it. So many neat little things, such a cool setting and story, so many little game design elements that are just perfectly thought out…
I haven’t looked at sales but I hope it sold well so that the upcoming sequel can have even higher budget. I know it is going to move from 2.5D to full 3D environments, but I am just so curious to see what this dev could do with an AA budget.
prefer the estus system, I don’t really want to spend time farming for blood echos so I can buy more vials lol
Probably going to play Armored Core VI this weekend if any soulslike, otherwise Helldivers & DRG.
