I probably won’t be playing any soulslikes this weekend, but my partner and I are deep in the trenches of Warframe, having traded one free2play addiction for another :D we’re currently still clearing the star chart and doing all the main missions.
I’ve recently built Volt and Wukong and am currently getting Volt to 30 (might use him as a base once I can subsume Warframes). After that, I’ll switch to Wukong for some leveling. That’s the Warframe I’ve been saving up materials for for a while, so I’m looking forward to dipping my toes in there. Also earned my first platinum yesterday, so we might end up doing more Void Fissures for some more easy platinum. My partner apparently got a super rare mod on one of our missions that’s only got like a 1% drop chance and sells for around 100 plat on the market which is crazy.
So for me, it took several attempts to get into soulslikes. Bloodborne was my first and my first attempt went ok I think. I got to Papa G and then called it a day because I thought I knew where I had to go - a corridor were I’d get ambushed by enemies jumpscare style, which was more or less fabricated lol - but then just stopped playing lol. Same goes for Sekiro which I ended up sticking with after three separate new playthroughs as well as several years between each. Bloodborne got quite hard by the end, but I managed somehow, and yet, Sekiro was a whole different beast. It challenged me in ways I could not have imagined prior. Hence, I’d say that Sekiro definitely was the one game that pushed me to my limits and had me “git gud” somewhat and prepared me for soulslikes to come. Not so much in terms of level design, finding my way around a complicated map, or using a specific build, since all of these are either nonexistent or not huge focuses of the game, but definitely in terms of hard mechanics and micro.
Which one was it for you? How did it make you a better player?
I’ll be going through the DLC of Elden Ring this weekend with a friend. His skill level is well above mine, so we tend to fare pretty well against most of the enemies in the game.
As far as which one forced me to adjust and learn the genre, Bloodborne for sure. I played DS1 and DS2 relatively close to their respective releases, and I always did slow exploration with the biggest shield I could find. Bosses tended to be almost more luck than skill. Then Bloodborne came out and I had to actually learn to dodge, especially once I got to the DLC. Over my first three playthroughs I learned skills that have helped me in every soulslike I have played since.
Honorable mention to Sekiro, though. Took a bit for that one to click, but once it did I had a blast. Unfortunately the skillset there is not quite as transferrable.
I just recently bought the Elden Ring DLC and am going thru that now too. It’s really fun. Also just respecc’d for the 8th time this playthru xD
We are going to be trying out the Elden Ring Reforged mod with two players in seamless coop. Looking forward to it and hope to be pleasantly surprised by this mod. We will be sure to have fun either way.
Awesome! Enjoy your time :)
As a follow up to this, we played about 11 hours of this mod and it’s not very good. We had some tech issues, which is to be expected, especially combining seamless coop with other mods. But the experience we had on other large mods such as Covergence for example was much better, Reforged had a lot of crashes, weird bugs or simple oversights by the devs.
I love a lot of the concepts in the mod, the ideas behind them are creative and sound fun. The execution however leaves a lot to be desired. They introduce a whole bunch of new mechanics, most of which only kinda sorta work and some just fall flat.
For example there is a ducking mechanic as a dodge option, which in principle is very fun. It’s cool to have an extra option in the toolbox and it looks cool. However it is very situational, where I’ve seen very few occasions outside the tutorial where it was useful at all. On top of that for one of us it kinda worked, for the other it would just simply not work at all, the input failed to register. This made the mechanic frustrating to use and we ended up not using it at all, which is a shame.
They also messed with stuff they should have better left alone. The balancing is all over the place and in many places attempts at (I presume) making stuff harder just made things frustrating, tedious and outright unfun. Balancing is very hard and at the moment at least it’s not there yet. One example is cool down timers on bosses and enemies. They’ve reduced or outright removed them, this made them all very chaotic and spammy. Those cool downs are there for a reason, it’s to make the game feel fun to play. Having a boss spam their biggest attack over and over again isn’t adding difficulty, it’s just poor game design.
There’s also stuff I really liked, but wasn’t really a big factor in gameplay. For example they have a kind of subclass specialization system and that’s awesome. The benefits and downsides are cool and would really add value. In reality however it felt like it was a small detail that overall didn’t really impact gameplay at all. Perhaps further into the game it would become more relevant, but we played a good chunk of the game and I would have like to have it way more prominent.
They also tried to “fix” crafting and they made a good attempt at it. It is in fact an improvement over the vanilla system. But I find the lack of QoL like auto crafting of parts annoying. And in the end the stuff you can craft is close to vanilla, in other words very situational, annoying to use and not really worth it. So the stuff they fixed doesn’t matter much if the whole crafting thing simply isn’t relevant.
Another thing I disliked was the speed boost they gave Torrent. I think Torrent was plenty fast in vanilla and having fast travel made it never really an issue in the first place. The increased speed made handling him annoying and horse combat (already an iffy thing in Elden Ring) basically impossible. Perhaps if you’re the kind of player who goes on a gathering quest quickly before starting the game it might be useful. But I just like to play in a natural way, picking up stuff as I get there with natural progression, rather than zooming across the map to get the specific items.
All in all we had fun, despite the tech issues and the issues we had with the gameplay of the mod. I admire what the devs did, it’s a lot. But I feel like the changes were maybe more than what was realistic. A smaller scope could have perhaps lead to better execution of the excellent ideas. I wouldn’t recommend the mod at this time, but that’s my personal opinion in a single day of coop gameplay. I’ve heard people playing in single player who had a great time and different people like different things. 5/10 for me, not terrible, but not great.
I just got the platinum trophy for Armored Core 6 after platinuming Elden Ring.
When it first came out I tried to get into it but didn’t quite get it.
The same thing happened with Sekiro. One day that just clicked for me - that is was more a rhythm game than the pace of Dark Souls or Bloodborne. Armored Core is similar. It’s more about avoiding damage and building up the stagger bar on the enemy and save your big hitting weapons for that moment when they’re staggered to chunk off their health before repeating the pattern again.
Also the story and characters are great. I didn’t know this previously but you have to (and it’s well worth) playing to end of NG++ to understand the full scope of the story.
The other thing that i like is that it’s very replayable and experimental. You can sell parts back for 100% of their purchase price and you are encouraged to create and save new builds in your garage, and swap between them. A lot of the time the answer to a mission or boss is swapping to a different build or weapon type.
Never thought of AC as a “soulslike” before but you really feel the Miyazaki touch the more you get into it.
deleted by creator
One thing that made it click for me was slowing down a bit, and doing the Dark Souls strategy of just trying to avoid damage for a while. You do feel like you need to rush, but you can actually take your time, explore and take your time. You can always do levels again and you’re only going to earn more credits. It’s fine to do a “death run” and just check out a level. You’ll eventually have more credits than you need.
And yeah if you’re banging your head against a wall on a particular mission the answer may be a different build. At a checkpoint you can swap to one of your other builds or swap a part and try again. No need to restart the entire level (unless there’s needed equipment you haven’t bought yet)
I generally played through slow. It’s good to pick some easy missions like killing the AC Student or a fun boss mission like Operation Wallclimber to try out new builds and earn some credits while you’re at it. If you’re going for combat logs you don’t need to find them all in one run. If the mission is hard, grab the one or two that you can and make it to the checkpoint or finish the mission so you earn them. Then you can do the mission again if there are more combat logs or parts containers to find.
A big thing for me was to get to that point where it just felt cosy and comfy jumping in and moving around.
Like Dark Souls, a lot of the early game equipment is very viable. The pulse blade you get at the start is one of the best melee weapons. Closes the distance, good tracking, damage.
Think about the kind of build you want and the range you want to fight at: tetrapod legs allow you to hover, so you might pair that with missiles to rain down on the battlefield, and you’d need a Fire Control System suitable for long range accuracy.
If you watch a build guide video they’ll explain better.
Do all the training as soon they’re available. There are only 7 and they give you some extra equipment.
Do all the arena fights as soon as they become available every time. They give you “OST” points to upgrade your operating system - mostly passive skills to permanently upgrade damage resistance, damage output for the damage type you use (like I barely used energy weapons so I didn’t bother upgrading them). You can easily reset your OST points for a small cost and will eventually unlock them all.
My typical build is typically a medium weight bipedal or reverse joint build for high mobility, with dual weapons - shotguns if I want to be close range darting in and out, or ludlows or etsujins if I want to stay at medium range strafing around the enemy. Nachtreiher arms for the high firearm specialisation are a favourite.
You can unlock an OST upgrade so you can carry an arm weapon on your back. So I typically have a pulse blade on my left shoulder I can swap to when needed, then a big fuck off cannon like songbirds or stun needle launcher on my right shoulder.
Don’t just fire your big weapons blindly. You’ll stop and get stuck in the animation and punished for it. Instead strafe around. If you hear or see a warning sound for incoming damage then dodge. Typically you want to build up stagger with your hand weapons, but be ready for when you know you’re about to get the stagger so you can position yourself to whack them with the pulse blade then blast them with the stun needle launcher and get out. Or whatever the equivalent may be for whatever build and fighting style you choose.
I typically aim with my right stick. But one thing I didn’t realise embarrassingly late (like I was getting my final S rank) is that in order to use the hard lock system you have to not touch the right stick at all. It’s handy on a boss where there’s a lot of trash stealing your lock on.
Happy to answer more questions.
deleted by creator
No worries! One thing I’ll add is really don’t worry about rankings for missions. They’re not ranked at all the first time you complete them - you only get ranked on replays and they do not matter at all. The only reason to try for S ranks is for fun and to get the achievement if you really get into it. And there’s no point trying for S ranks until you’ve completed NG++ and have all the missions unlocked and have access to all equipment.
Go get ‘em buddy! And good luck, Raven!
No Soulslikes for me this weekend; Steam NextFest is ongoing so I am NextFesting for all I’m worth. Standing with a pan in the river of slop like a goldrush hopeful trying desperately to sift for any nuggets washing downstream. Which, thankfully, I’ve been able to find at least some gems even among all the soulless single-prompt Claude Code vomit.
As for what made me “git gud” well… I have avoided Sekiro and Khazan for a reason. And that is that I don’t think any Soulslike I’ve played so far has truly forced me to “git gud”, and I’m currently perfectly content with that remaining the case. Maybe that is a hurdle I am physically able to overcome with patience and effort, maybe it isn’t and my reflexes are shot. At the moment, I’m more interested in experiencing a whole slew of new and wildly differing games than spending months finding out.
Yea, I think a break from soulslikes is good for me as well. It’s easy to get engrossed and lose yourself (palms are sweaty) in them but often I end up getting a little too frustrated with myself for not performing as well as I want to and quickly burn out on the game. Having something on the side to cancel out the possible frustration of the game is definitely a good idea.
I had to git gud twice, because I spent too long not playing soulslikes. DS1 was the first time - specifically, the Capra Demon - and then it was Margit’s Stormveil appearance in Elden Ring that made me re-git, In both cases they’re pretty notorious wake-up bosses, and in both cases finally cracking it reminded me why I like this kind of challenge. Although it should be noted that I never gitted that gud, only just enough to do what I wanted to do
No soulslikes for me this weekend because I’m playtesting a racing game, but I grabbed Death’s Door and am excited to try it out at some point
My best teacher in all Souls games was still Central Yharnam, the first level in my first Souls game Bloodborne. Best teacher for environments – dealing with groups of enemies, unlocking shortcuts, the whole nine yards. Also the two bosses Cleric Beast teaches you how to deal with giant enemies and Papa G humanoid ones.
(Is this truly “git gud?” Well, still the Central Yharnam prepared me for my journey through Souls games.)
Another thing that could fall in the category of me “getting gud”: my first Rune Level 1 of Elden Ring. This was the first challenge run I did in a Souls game. I did at one point seriously plan to do a BL4 run of Bloodborne, but still to this day haven’t done that. I think what my first RL1 really taught me was build making and looking for creative solutions. I did now RL1 Elden Ring multiple times and also SL1 DS3. Challenge runs in Souls games are really fun, it turns out. I even beat Elden Ring Randomizer at RL1 (that was so much fun).
I did not have time to play any Souls games this weekend. I did play a bit of DS3 during the week but didn’t have time this weekend and probably won’t have time in the near future due to irl stuff.
None ever because I don’t understand the appeal of these games. From watching other people play this genre, it seems like all you do is run from one boss battle to the next (and I hate boss battles in games). The rest of the game seems like filler to kill time until the next fight. I just don’t get it.
That’s fair: they’re not for everyone. The hyperfocus on bosses has been a recent development of the genre. Bosses have always been a mainstay of the genre, for sure, but the level (design) and its interconnectivity was just as, if not more, important. Making the bosses as hard as possible is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.
What kinda games do you usually play?
Any kind of sim: Racing sims, flying sims, truck driving sims, military sims, The Sims, etc. I also like action RPGs.
Basically the games I like the most are the ones with the most realism or the most immersive role-play (but not DnD/dungeon crawling. I don’t like any wizard/dragon/fantasy stuff. Space and Sci-fi is cool).
Eyy, a fellow racing sim fan in here! Understandable that soulslikes aren’t your thing, but I’ll add my perspective to Druid’s: while some people do just like the boss fights, many of these games (and especially From Software’s ones) are excellent for just having interesting environments to explore as well. To take Elden Ring as an example, some of my absolute favourite moments are just the reveals of areas you’ve discovered. The original Dark Souls is quite famous for people unlocking shortcuts and going “oh holy shit, this door leads back to the hub area?”
The boss fights definitely are a big part of the joy, I’m not pretending otherwise. But I can at least promise that there’s other fun stuff in there (for people that those other bits appeal to, of course, which is still not going to be everyone and probably isn’t you)
Right, it does sound like soulslikes just aren’t the right type of game for you then since many, if not most, are set in a fantasy setting and put a huge onus on boss battles. Many of them also have a lot of RPG elements, especially Dark Souls 1-3.
However, if you do like sci-fi, might I recommend The Surge and Remnant to you? The Surge is more of a “traditional” soulslike but with a sci-fi setting and Remnant is a 3rd-person shooter soulslike with loot mechanics similar to Diablo. The Surge is an acquired taste, more so the first one since I’ve been told it’s worse than its sequel, but still fun, and both Remnant 1 and 2 are good in their own rights. I’m not sure I’d call Remnant to be set in a sci-fi setting, but it’s different enough from your average soulslike that it might be something for you. Mind you still very different from a sim
Silksong, hollow knight.
Got competent with Bloodborne, and actually gud with Elden Ring.
Got a new controller so it’s time to go back to Khazan, I’ll probably have to git gud again after months of souls like downtime, though. but I’m sufficiently caffeinated and ready.
Technically Valheim is a soulslike? Right? It has stamina, dodge rolls, parrying, invincibility frames and boss fights.
Anyway, I will be playing Valheim 1.0 over the weekend.
