Progress Report: Saw Butterfly boss once, and Hydra a few times.
We've hit the wall.
It's not to say that I haven't made progress since I last played. I explored a lake area with some spectres, I found the route to a boss, a Blacksmith, and lit a few bonfires. That''s real, tangible progress.
I've just hit a point where my normal tools aren't working.
Last time I talked about strategies that people like to use to carry them through. I ended up using a lot of the Estoc combo I had mentioned in that post a lot, but I'm not happy about it.
Why?
Because I couldn't get anything else to work.
In the Darkroot Garden, immediately near the Bonfire. I died. I died a lot. I had used the Estoc at first, because it had a it had a jab attack, so it could hit things in the narrow pathways. It worked... Kind of.
I then switched to the Longword, and that worked. Kind of, but a little worse.
I tried spamming my magic to get through, but that left me resource depleted for the next area.
I could never get through without taking hits or using flask, and in the next area, I encountered some big rocky friends. I tried the Estoc... It didn't work. I tried the longsword... It didn't work. I tried the Morningstar, which worked a little better! But only for those specific enemies, and there were others in the area. My big heavy magic spell did wonders, if they weren't shielding.
I couldn't get anything to stick effectively enough, so I resorted to my Estoc, now a +3, and my spells. I finally managed to sneak around most of the area, not aggroding or activating some enemies that kept cornering me, until I saw the boss. And got show down rom 75% health to dead in one go.
I tried to get back to the boss. Trust me, I tried. But I kept getting funneled back into the extra enemies and dying.
Funnily enough, on my way back to the Blacksmith, after a disastrous spell there, I stumbled upon a branching path I had missed. This path would lead to the basin where I would experience something similar. I'm still tilted from the Basin, so I'm just gonna say that these hitboxes might be busted.
I don't feel like I wasted my time though. Not entirely.
Like a lot of games, I at least learned something as I played. Whether it was getting more in tune with the rhythm of my combos, or the enemy positions, or even the layout of the paths. This isn't anything special. Many RPGs have you do this for boss fights, where you will wipe repeatedly and have to redo the fight with the knowledge you had gleaned from your previous attempt. First Person Shooters do this with enemy placement all the time, especially in games or levels where you have to ascertain where a special unit, like a sniper, is hiding so you can avoid trouble.
Dark Souls uses this as almost a mandatory education. Your primary school education, as it were, is learning where everything is, and knowing your loadout inside and out. How fast will your shield come up with this loadout? How far will your roll go? How fast will it start? How long does it take for you to have control again? How far does your weapon reach?These feel foundational to the game, not from a design perspective, but from something else I can't quite place. You don't NEED to know them to progress, but it feels like you SHOULD. I'm not sure if this is due to the game trying to tell me something, or if it's due to how I'm hardwired.
There are all sorts of stories where game mechanics that people love are a result from a mistake, such as combos in Street Fighter 2 and Wave Dashing in Super Smash Bros Melee, that end up leaving a mark on a game. Every time I play a game that's a little rough, and a little clunky, I end up second guessing if something clever is intentional. Does Dark Souls control a little heavy by design choice as a means of conveying something, or by mistake? I'll never be able to tell.
Let's do a lesson review of what I know.
- Outside of a bonfire, there is an alcove with enemies waiting. They can be blocked, but their range is surprisingly long, and they can subdue you if you get to close.
- The splash range on one enemy's ranged attack is always bigger than you think. Approach with haste and caution.
- Stop trying to engage everything in melee. You have 12 Strength and 25 Intelligence. Use your damn spells instead of hoarding them.
Homework for next time? Calm down, take a breath, and re-evaluate after some distance. I find I play better when going in with fresh eyes, instead of after a few failed attempts.
We'll see how that goes.
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