Bloodborne - GOTD edition

[Fury4k]

So I went on a date tonight that went pretty well. Still I thought about this game more than once. Looks like its got its hooks in to me again.

[Davros sock drawer]

12 hours ago, Professor_k said:

I've just started Bloodborne and i've never played a Dark Souls game before. I don't really understand the save system.  Am I supposed to leg it back to the Hunters Sanctuary at the point where I bottle it and want to save my spoils?

 

The game autosaves continually. If you choose "Quit Game" from the menu, your character will be just where you left him when you re-start.

 

 

[Fury4k]

If you don't click quit save you lose some stuff too, right? At least I know the game tells you off if you turn it off without quitting first. 

[Professor_k]

Thanks for the info.  I managed to get back to Hunters Dream and buy some new clothes... then I left and got killed.  I'm enjoying the notes in this :))  didn't realize other players could leave you messages in the game.

[JohnnyRyall]

2 hours ago, Fury.HD said:

If you don't click quit save you lose some stuff too, right? At least I know the game tells you off if you turn it off without quitting first. 

 

The game autosaves pretty much constantly so I don't think it's possible to lose much if any progress.

 

I know I've had more than a few occasions in the Souls games where I've done something daft like accidentally twat an NPC and then tried to escape the consequences by switching off without saving - never works.

[Fury4k]

Hunters?

Spoiler

Dead men more like

 

I cheesed the one by

Spoiler

Shooting him off the side of the tower. Felt a tiny bit cheap, but I have no regrets. The second one was a full on fight and I killed him first attempt. He didn't go down without putting up a fight though and a couple of straggling beasts joined the fray at one point. It was such a great fight. My adrenaline was through the roof by the end of it. 

So now I'm at a loss again of where to go, there doesn't seem to be anywhere on beyond the area they were blocking. But I guess I'll have more freedom to explore the areas I previously had to bolt through now.  

[noob]

im having my ass handed to me in the research hall. 

 

used a bell and summoned some help. he promptly stood on the lift down, jumped off it then fell backwards. 

 

plum 

[memories]

Few hours in tonight for my first time. Initial impressions were good, combat was fun and then ibhad over 3k in blood things and no idea what to do with them. Didn't want to go further in as I knew death would loose them all.

 

Chicken it and head back to the hunters dream but there was nothing to really spend them on. Went back into the world and every thing had respawned, flashbacks to Demon souls as I try and just hammer through them to get back to where I was and then i get killed at a bit I passed ages back. Then frustration as I try to get back there only to die sooner than before. Took about 8 attempts to get passed the same area as i got more annoyed.

 

Is there a map in the options? I've no real idea where I'm supposed to be going and just seem to be wandering aimlessly. I fell down into what looked like sewers and got some better gear at one point so that was handy, picked up some Hunters outfit.

 

I then ended up in another sewer bit and fought some giant pig in a tunnel and killed him, luck more than anything I think there, climbed the big ladder at the end of his tunnel only to be killed by a troll thing up the top of it and be sent all the way back to the start.

 

I'm not sure this is for me but going to give it another go.

[Fury4k]

Stick at it, it's never unfair and is immensely rewarding. I've put it down for a few weeks or months a couple of times. But I'm glad I've come back to it each time. I'd only ever payed Demon's Souls before, which I liked the idea of, but to me at least this is just better in everyway.

[memories]

Yeah I'm going to get back into it, don't want to give up too soon as I think that would be cheating myself a bit. I really want to get into this one, I love the look of the game, visually its beautiful, and I want to see more.

[KartoffelKopf]

If you were where I think you were You were this > < close to a boss there. At the top of the ladder, go over the bridge and through the archway and you'll be in one the greatest boss fights in videogame history. Beat him/her and the world opens up and you suddenly feel indestructible. 

 

Before you you do that though, head left before the bridge to the elevator and ......SHORTCUT!

 

Stick with it, you'll be glad you did and no, there's no map. 

[memories]

Haha, well bollocks, I thought that pig might have been some sort of boss fight but he seemed a bit easy. Will have to see if I can remember how I got to that area now and head back there.

 

No map eh, I'm usually pretty good at special awareness and where I am in relation to things when gaming but was finding it tricky last night, guess its about learning the areas, cheers for the tip about the shortcut, will have a look for that. From my admittedly hazy memory of Demons Souls there was essentially a general path to follow that took you to the boss, BB seems a lot more open than that and I was off all over the place last night without a clear sense of where I should be going. Seems a lot easier to end up in an area that you are way underpowered and get wasted, guess that could be the point though.

 

Is there a way to compare items available in a shop to what you have? When I warped back to the Hunters Dream I went to the Skeleton Fountain/Shop and he had some gear to sell me, it was a right faff going in and out of the buy and sell menus to compare the stats of what I had to what was on sale. This may have been patched in at some point perhaps, my wifi was flaky last night so I couldn’t apply any updates for BB or play it online.

 

How do you level up? I couldn’t see any XP type thing anywhere so guess its not that style but I also couldn’t see anywhere to spend the blood things to level up either, what am I missing there?

 

Any tips on using the gun? I tended to totally forget about it and was just using R1 & R2 all the time.

 

Looking back now in my first play I can totally see why I was getting killed at time and having to repeat areas, this is not a game that you can just go steaming into places mashing buttons even in areas that you think are “easy”, I was being too hasty and getting careless which lead to silly deaths which lead to frustration which lead to more deaths. Something I need to work on there.

 

The mechanic of losing everything and going back to the start/last lantern is something I need to embrace I think. It may be a strange comparison but when thinking about this I started to think of its like old school shoot em ups. I'm a huge fan of R-Type and for whatever reason I started to compare how when playing that you can be tooled up with Force and the satellites and then one shot kills you and bang your back to the start/checkpoint with just your standard R-9 ship but still facing everything that was there before. Seems a strange comparison really, not sure how that came into my head really but there you are

 

It must have done something right as BB was all I was thinking of on my drive to work this morning and I think I'm going to spend most of the day thinking over what I played last night and how to move forward. Should be back on tonight and will see how it goes, slow and steady wins the race I believe and hopefully frustration won’t get the better of me.

 

Sorry, but of a rambling post there. All this must seem pretty basic stuff to most in here.

[KartoffelKopf]

Stats mean very little in comparison to each other to be honest. With weapons, the important bit is how each weapon scales against your chosen upgrade points. i.e. If a weapon has a high (A-C) grade in the strength stat, that means it will have higher damage output based on the upgrade points you put in strength. 

 

You also upgrade weapons which will add damage output and improve the scaling. 

 

For 'armour', outside of a few obvious instances where some of it gives you specific defense (fighting a guy who is hurling fireballs, you want a high Fire defense stat etc), it's all about how fucking boss you look. Once you own anything, it does compare against your equipped but not until you have it in your inventory. 

 

Important to remember that any weapon and armour set will be good enough to get you to the end of the game dependent on where you put your stat points. You don't get incrementally better weapons. Many people do the whole game with one of the starting weapon, the saw cleaver. Upgrade mats for weapon are pretty rare. 

 

You level up with your blood echoes at the Hunters Dream. You need one insight point to be able to do so which you get from meeting your first boss. Once you have that, a creepy doll will appear in the HD and she'll level you up. 

 

Yeah, it'll be all you think from now until you beat it. Embrace it and let the good blood guide you. 

[JohnnyRyall]

1 hour ago, KartoffelKopf said:

Important to remember that any weapon and armour set will be good enough to get you to the end of the game dependent on where you put your stat points.

 

I think this is a key point.

 

Bloodborne isn't like most RPGs where you get progressively more powerful weapons and armour as you progress through the game.

 

All armour sets, for instance, have roughly the same overall defense, it's just how the points are distributed between blood def, fire def etc that differentiates them. You'll eventually want to buy all of the armour (but not necessarily right away if you need echoes for levelling etc).

 

The gun isn't really meant for dealing damage but for countering certain enemies. If you shoot just as they begin to attack you can stagger them, causing them to fall and drop their defense - if you get up close to an enemy after staggering them and press R1 you'll perform a visceral attack. It's worth practicing on the pitchfork-wielders you find around the bonfire, as they have slow, predictable attacks. You can safely keep your distance while shooting, and then jump in only after staggering them. Sounds tricky but you'll get the hang of it quickly.

 

Don't be put off at the start. The game makes a point of throwing you in at the deep end but it gets easier as you progress.

[Davros sock drawer]

Memories, have you by any chance picked up an item called a Madman's Knowledge? If so you can consume that to gain one Insight point. Then you can level up at the Hunter's Dream. Otherwise you'll gain your first Insight point by running into a boss.

 

The most important thing for level progression in Bloodborne is finding shortcuts. If you haven't opened the other gate to the left of the starting Lantern of Central Yarnham, then that should be your first goal. If you want some general advice, remember that you can run (hold circle) past all the enemies. Just generally in the game it can be worth going on a suicide run, deep, deep into the level, just to see what loot you can grab, and what shortcuts you can find. If you die, no matter. You'll have probably discovered something you can keep, as you did with the Hunter's clothing set.

 

Your analogy to old skool games like R-Type is apt, but imagine that you fly far enough into the level to find Missiles say. You die, and lose all your points, but crucially, you get to keep the missiles. Also, you've got one chance to get your points back. That's kind of how Bloodborne works.

 

If you want specific instructions on how to open up the first shortcut, they're in this spoiler tag:

 

 

 

Run past everyone at the bonfire, go up the stairs on the left. In the next area, with the fountain in the middle and the ogre banging on the gate, hug the left hand side. Just before the house with that annoying woman who laughs at you, there are some coffins and such that you can break to reveal a gap in the fence. Drop down and you'll be in an area with dogs in cages. Explore around here and you should find a house you can enter. Go through the house and out the other side and you should end up on the other side of the gate. Open it, and you never need tackle the bonfire area

ever again. Although importantly, you can if you want, and I recommend it just to hone your skills and earn echoes.

 

 

The other thing about the lack of a map and the fact that you go back to the "start" each time, is that in this game knowledge shrinks space. What seems like a never ending network of criss-crossing paths will soon be a 30 second run back via shortcuts you've opened, and you'll soon know the area so well it'll be like a real place in your mind.

 

Good luck. Really glad you're playing it.

[memories]

Thanks for the gun tips, I pulled that off once on a pitchfork guy, looked good. My problem is remembering that i even have the gun in the first place. Need to practice the timing then.

 

I've not picked up a "madman's knowledge" yet no, will keep an eye out for that or a boss, sounds like I need the leveling up part to open it up for me.

 

Yip that shortcut has been opened, I kept going the bonfire way to get back my lost echoes and to earn more. I think I need to focus on getting the level up part opened before worrying about earning more echeos.

 

 

[Davros sock drawer]

Ah well in that case you're doing great, better than I was at the same stage. I had to be told how to open that shortcut!

 

You'll find a boss soon enough.

[Minion]

Yes! The Cleric Beast is down woohoo!

[Sir DangerM]

I never made it past Ludwig in the DLC. Now I've got Dark Souls 3 I'm not sure I'll ever go back to it...

[Qazimod]

10 hours ago, memories said:

Any tips on using the gun? I tended to totally forget about it and was just using R1 & R2 all the time.

 

Looking back now in my first play I can totally see why I was getting killed at time and having to repeat areas, this is not a game that you can just go steaming into places mashing buttons even in areas that you think are “easy”, I was being too hasty and getting careless which lead to silly deaths which lead to frustration which lead to more deaths. Something I need to work on there.

 

It's easy to ignore your stamina (the green bar) when doing stuff. It sounds like the most obvious thing ever but if you're jumping around when you don't need to, you'll find yourself with an empty stamina bar at a time when you need to dodge. During the opening hours of the game you want to get used to knowing how much you can do with a full stamina bar (how many attacks, dodges, rolls etc), just so that you always try and keep a roll or dodge available if things get hairy.

 

The gun - as JR says, if you shoot someone during their attack - e.g. not in the wind-up or reset phase -  you'll stagger them and can hit R1 for your visceral attack. Sometimes the positioning can be a bit picky so I like to lock on, stagger them, dash in with forward+circle (so that I'm right in front of them) and then hit R1. It seems like a lot to think about when you're trying to fend off enemies, but eventually it'll be second nature.

[Minion]

I'm really struggling with the stagger, so often I just get smashed in the face when trying it.

[memories]

Not had a chance to get back in tonight, sick wife and two kids put the kybosh on it.

 

Thanks for the pointers though folks.

[Minion]

Oh wow FG is proper hard, he kills me in like 2 or 3 attacks! Tomorrow I will try again. This game is really really good, I can't believe I put it off for so long.

[noob]

21 hours ago, Minion said:

Oh wow FG is proper hard, he kills me in like 2 or 3 attacks! Tomorrow I will try again. This game is really really good, I can't believe I put it off for so long.

 

welcome to the family!!!  

 

 

[palaver]

Can anyone explain a bit of the weapon scaling stuff? I'm using Ludwig's Holy Blade because it's a big sword with a little sword inside it which is obviously awesome. However the stat scaling things say it scales equally on Strength, Dexterity, and Arcane. If I'm going to stick with it should I be putting levels into all three or do you just need to work on one?

[JohnnyRyall]

The arcane scaling only applies to bolt/fire damage, so you won't gain any benefit from that unless you equip the LHB with a fire or bolt gem.

 

You'll find that most weapons in Bloodborne scale with both skill and strength, so it's sensible to level both stats. Some weapons favour one over the other, and there are a couple that scale exclusively with blood or arcane, but for a first-time play-through you can safely focus on levelling skill and str equally - you won't gimp your character by not focusing on one exclusively.

 

I'd aim to get both stats to 25 to start with (gains begin to drop off after level 25). By then you should have access to a good number of weapons so you might have a better idea if you want to put more points into one or other stat.

 

It's worth noting that skill also increases the strength of visceral attacks.

 

Edit: Just to clarify, if a weapon scales with both skill and str you'll gain a scaling bonus from both - it doesn't prioritise whichever one you have at a higher level. Which is a why it's a good idea to get it both to 25 unless you're going for a v. specific build.

[palaver]

Thanks Johnny! That clears things up a lot.

[Minion]

Goddamn that FG is a proper smeg when he changes! Does the music box work on him in his beast mode? I kept getting smashed trying to use it. I also thre 4 oil urns at him and every time just as I threw it he jumped in the bloody air! Now I have none and cannot buy anymore. Tomorrow is another day.

[Davros sock drawer]

Yes, you can use the Music Box once I think, after he's transformed.

 

He's a very intimidating boss, but you can do it!

 

Fucking great isn't it?

[memories]

Cleric beast done and the leveling up sidehas opened up so I got to spend some echoes, happy days.

 

Then I met Father Gascoigne, what a cunt. Tried about 15 times and got hammered every time. 

 

Not so sure "fucking great" is how I'm feeling at the moment.

 

Read about the music box thing, no idea where to find it though.