Bloodborne PS4!

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Squirrelofwoe

3,181 posts

175 months

Thursday 11th March 2021
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AceOfHearts said:
I remember when this came out, it seemed to be just hours of dying before starting to get the hang of the controls and the first level. Definitely a super frustrating game and I eventually gave up around the area where the giant pigs are (I don't know how far into the game that was)
Pretty much my experience when I first started playing it- albeit I gave up much earlier that that!

I've done 5 bosses now and not found any of them them too bad, i.e. a few attempts to suss out their patterns before beating it reasonably comfortably. Vicar Amelia I beat on the 2nd attempt using only 2 blood vials for the whole fight. And I am basically CRAP at boss fights hehe

That said I am quite a bit 'over-levelled' now as I spent absolutely ages in Central Yharnam when I first started the game, and also ended up going through Old Yharnam and Hemwick several times. It has taken away some of the fear of insta-death and with it the frustration, which has made for a much more enjoyable experience (for me at least). It's still tough, and as soon as I get complacent I invariably die, but I don't feel like I am constantly one hit away from the loading screen anymore. Basically I actually feel like a hunter now, rather than the hunted. It's made it just the right level of difficulty to be a challenge whilst still feeling fair.

I must say though that a big part of it was learning the controls properly- getting a feel for the different attacks and learning how to parry successfully 9 times out of 10. Oh and upgrading the pistol (and associated skill) so that if needs be I can deal with the odd particularly tough enemy from a distance. And swapping from the saw cleaver to the hunter's axe biggrin

Squirrelofwoe

3,181 posts

175 months

Thursday 18th March 2021
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Last night I did the Amygdala boss in the nightmare frontier (I'd already cleared out the area)- tough fight to start with. Must have had 3 or 4 attempts where I barely got a single hit in before dying. Then I figured out the tactic of hanging back just out range, then moving in to get a stun attack on the head followed up by a visceral. Took a good 5-10 minutes of simply hanging back waiting for the openings- killed it with just 6 hits (3 stuns + 3 viscerals) and used only two blood vials biggrin

I then went and did Rom the spider, which took 3 attempts. First two I tried ignoring the mini spiders on the second phase and going straight for Rom, this just didn't work at all as it was too hard to time the openings when trying to dodge both his attacks and the spiders. So third attempt I settled in for the long haul, carefully taking all the spiders before wailing on him with the Tonitros weapon. Then once he teleported I did the same again- slowly take out all the spiders then just keep circling him waiting for the opening to go in and get a hit or two, whilst sprinting whenever he unleashed the meteor shower. Then same again after the 3rd teleport. A painfully slow way of defeating him, but pretty minimal risk as the only attacks that actively seek you out is the meteor shower which you just sprint to avoid. Just a case of circling round and round waiting for the opening to sprint in and hit then sprint back out and continue circling.

Apparently the game gets properly hard now though! hehe

Steven_RW

1,727 posts

201 months

Friday 19th March 2021
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Squirrelofwoe said:
Last night I did the Amygdala boss....

Apparently the game gets properly hard now though! hehe
If you are doing this entirely blind, then you are doing well and better than most :-). Keep it up. I hope you have the full DLC so you can experience the entirety of the game. Some boss fights ahead and in the DLC may reduce you to tears. In a way, I hope they do, that way you will have experienced bloodborne properly :-)

It is just a brilliant game.

RW

Squirrelofwoe

3,181 posts

175 months

Friday 19th March 2021
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Steven_RW said:
If you are doing this entirely blind, then you are doing well and better than most :-). Keep it up. I hope you have the full DLC so you can experience the entirety of the game. Some boss fights ahead and in the DLC may reduce you to tears. In a way, I hope they do, that way you will have experienced bloodborne properly :-)

It is just a brilliant game.

RW
I've been following a guide to the extent that I make sure I'm going through the game in the best order to experience everything (as I doubt I'm going to have the time to go through this game fully again!), and I've used NPC summons for boss fights where available- although some of them I've found more of a hinderance than a help.

The only boss fight so far where I genuinely had to watch some videos for was the Shadow of Yharnam - I just kept getting rinsed over and over again by those three things so I figured I must have been missing something fundamental. It turns out I wasn't though, I just needed to get better! Definitely the most challenging fight I've done so far, and I did start to wonder if I'd reached my limit. I then did it on my next attempt without taking too much damage, ironically after the NPC summoned character got pretty much insta-killed and I was left fighting them all by myself. This seemed to make it easier as I was able to focus them down one at a time without them getting distracted by the NPC. This boss was also good practice for Rom- i.e. circling the arena keeping whilst keeping the camera focused on something other than what you are fighting. All that practice definitely made the Rom fight easier.

I do have the DLC enabled, again I want to see the whole game in one playthrough.

I've just dipped my toe into the first Chalice dungeon, up to the end of level two. So next plan is to delve a bit more in that one, then probably go to Cainhurst before doing the Yhargul village.

I'm level 73 or thereabouts which has definitely helped- I'm doing about 340 damage with Ludwigs blade, and just shy of 300 with the hunter axe and the Tonitros. I've also levelled Bloodtinge up so that I'm doing 150+ damage with the hunter pistol which has been incredibly useful. I'm much more confident using the gun to stagger now to really rinse the visceral kills- it makes the game MUCH easier when you can consistently get those off!

It's surprised me how much I've been able to stick with it as I've never been one for games with challenging boss fights- I normally just go to pieces. This game is really getting me over that mental block though which is great, each time I die I generally know where I cocked up so I'm desperate to get back in for another go. I'm enjoying it so much I'm very keen to give Dark Souls 3 a go on PC after finishing this. The only bit of bloodborne I'm not really enjoying is being stuck at 30fps. Being used to playing stuff on PC at 1440p and 60-100fps this has really felt like a step backwards, which is such a shame as the game would look absolutely incredible at higher res & fps. Here's hoping they release it on PC / do a PS5 remaster one day- that would definitely get me to play through it again.

Steven_RW

1,727 posts

201 months

Friday 19th March 2021
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Squirrelofwoe said:
and I've used NPC summons for boss fights where available
You lost me by this bit.




... ;-)

I crashed through the first time with zero idea and zero help and like you say, I missed tonnes of things but it was before the DLC was released. It was my first souls game and it about broke me but the atmosphere and the challenge of just getting back to the location that you died kept me going.

I bravely then went on to Dark Souls and it is much older in style and slower and a bit of a shock to start with but lordy - do it. Don't go straight to DS3, take on DS. It is magificent.

You sound like you are doing well but the more blind you do things the more you will cherish it.

RW

Squirrelofwoe

3,181 posts

175 months

Friday 19th March 2021
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Steven_RW said:
You lost me by this bit.




... ;-)

I crashed through the first time with zero idea and zero help and like you say, I missed tonnes of things but it was before the DLC was released. It was my first souls game and it about broke me but the atmosphere and the challenge of just getting back to the location that you died kept me going.

I bravely then went on to Dark Souls and it is much older in style and slower and a bit of a shock to start with but lordy - do it. Don't go straight to DS3, take on DS. It is magificent.

You sound like you are doing well but the more blind you do things the more you will cherish it.

RW
biggrin

I think the NPC summons feature was only added by the DLC - I thought it would help in the boss fights to have someone else for the boss to wail on instead of me! hehe

The problem I quickly discovered though is that by doing that it's very difficult to get the stagger + visceral attacks compared to when the boss is facing you direct, and also the NPCs do not appear to do much damage and have the durability and sense of self-preservation of a lemming! Of the 3 boss fights I've used them (Blood-starved Beast, Amelia, and Shadows of Yharnam) the one common denominator is that on the 'successful' run the NPC always got squished pretty much straight away rotate

I'll keep that in mind regarding Dark Souls!

Steven_RW

1,727 posts

201 months

Saturday 20th March 2021
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Being able to summon npc or another player has been part of the game since the start.

I do agree that most of the time, unless you summon amazing players, you often just regret it as the boss attacks become less based on your play style.

Keep it up and let us know how you go.

RW

Squirrelofwoe

3,181 posts

175 months

Tuesday 23rd March 2021
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Steven_RW said:
Being able to summon npc or another player has been part of the game since the start.

I do agree that most of the time, unless you summon amazing players, you often just regret it as the boss attacks become less based on your play style.

Keep it up and let us know how you go.

RW
Only got to play a couple of hours over the weekend- started Yhargul Chapel area. The respawning enemies really increase the difficulty somewhat! yikes

It must have taken me 2-3 hours and numerous deaths to find the next lamp in that area (down the stairs from the massive spider with the eye-lasers). Very much a case of trying to run through an area to find the bell-ringing women, take her out and promptly get killed by the 500 enemies who have followed you- or try and methodically take out the enemies on the way only to find myself swamped as they continually respawn...

Ended up succeeding by using a combination of the two. Run really fast past all the enemies to try and locate the bell women (and die). Then, knowing where she is, work towards her taking out only those enemies who were strictly in the way (quickly) meaning I could reach her and take her out before those enemies I'd killed had a chance to respawn and swamp me.

I'd gone over to using Ludwig's blade for the last couple of areas as my stats have reached a point where the damage scales so much more with it than the hunter's axe- but in this area I went back to the axe as it's just superb for crowd control, particularly the large groups of hags biggrin

Steven_RW

1,727 posts

201 months

Tuesday 23rd March 2021
quotequote all
Squirrelofwoe said:
Only got to play a couple of hours over the weekend- started Yhargul Chapel area. The respawning enemies really increase the difficulty somewhat! yikes

It must have taken me 2-3 hours and numerous deaths to find the next lamp in that area (down the stairs from the massive spider with the eye-lasers). Very much a case of trying to run through an area to find the bell-ringing women, take her out and promptly get killed by the 500 enemies who have followed you- or try and methodically take out the enemies on the way only to find myself swamped as they continually respawn...

Ended up succeeding by using a combination of the two. Run really fast past all the enemies to try and locate the bell women (and die). Then, knowing where she is, work towards her taking out only those enemies who were strictly in the way (quickly) meaning I could reach her and take her out before those enemies I'd killed had a chance to respawn and swamp me.

I'd gone over to using Ludwig's blade for the last couple of areas as my stats have reached a point where the damage scales so much more with it than the hunter's axe- but in this area I went back to the axe as it's just superb for crowd control, particularly the large groups of hags biggrin
Good times - entirely relatable :-)