So with this newest day I find that both Freedom Planet and Sword of the Stars: the Pit - Gold Edition are on sale, which I've had on my wishlist for some time, so I went ahead and bought them and Long Live the Queen. Though I plan to hang out with some meatspace friends today so I might be playing Smash Bros. and/or Monster Hunter.

There are so many things on sale on Steam so often that I'm just trying to learn to ignore it all.

On a side note, it turns out that on a SL 1 run Raw weapons do have a use. Who woulda thunk it?

If you don't know what a raw weapon is in Dark Souls, well then....... let us use a Battle Axe as an example. Assuming you have the bare minimum amount of scaling, a Raw Battle Axe +5 == Battle Axe + 13 (about equal). However, if you get any real scaling at all then Raw +5 < Normal +10, which are about equal as far as how far down the upgrade path you have gone. IN ADDITION, the raw path stops at the 10th upgrade level, while most other paths go to 15, so it's generally useless. Usually either you want to go with a magic/enchanted upgrade, a divine upgrade, or a normal upgrade to take advantage of scaling. There's absolutely no situation in which raw is a good investment, since nothing in the game is resistant enough to force that kind of differential on a faith or int focused character and the normal path is just..... well better.

However on the sl 1 run you have the bare minimum amount of scaling so it's actually a better option. This is because you can't get lighting weapons or +11 and further weapons until after Anor Londo (normally), and Raw weapons are far better than fire weapons (which says something very **** about how much they nerfed fire weapons).


^^ As far as my game is going, I decided to put on the favor and protection ring and mosy on down to the depths. I'm now farming for souls to upgrade my stuff as well as upgrade materials against ye olde slimes. I am working towards a Battle Axe +10 (to become a lightning weapon later), a Raw Battle Axe +5, a Divine Battle Axe +5, a pyro glove +15, and an upgraded set of pyro armor?

Another soul level 1 run tip. The base pyro armor is actually REALLY REALLY GOOD. If you want to stay below 25%, and you are just wearing the favor and protection ring, then a battle axe, pyro glove, pyro armor set, and grass crest shield way a combined 14. 14 * 4 = 52, and you have 61.2 equip burden, so you have a spare 9.2/4 = not a lot on top of that. There isn't really a better armor set for this? The entire tattered cloth set weights 7. The Battle Axe and Reinforced Club are your two weapons you really have to work with. They weight the exact same, so you can't really switch to a lighter weapon and keep as good damage. The best alternative is the hand axe? With the pyro glove, grass crest shield, and hand axe we would weight 50. ... That's not any better really.

Let's see. If we were comparing UNUPGRADED, we could flat out upgrade to the gold-hemmed black set after beating quelaag. Better across the board and just BARELY under 25% when we are done (it weights 2.1 pounds more so we would be at 60.X when we multiply that by 4, when the favor and protection ring gives us 61.X max). And of course we will do that short term? Maybe? Probably not? You can easily get the pyro set to +6 after a little bit of time, where I currently am at in the game. Assuming you have done this...... there isn't really something you can go pick up that's better? At least not and staying below 25% equip burden without havel's ring. The crimson set is JUST a little bit too much weight for us. The dinghy set is wayyyyyy too far into the game and requires you not getting the ring of favor and protection until late anor londo (both of which are bad). The gold hemmed set can't be upgraded and is thus worse than anything you take the time to upgrade early on (you would take your time to upgrade your armor if you are smart on a soul level 1 run). The only comparable thing is the bandit set?

Basically, on a soul level 1 run, you can go grab the bandit set and have a little bit better physical defense...... or you can go with the set you started with and have better everything else. Those are the 2 sets one wants to consider if doing a soul level 1 run at 25% equip burden or lower.

At 50% we get some more interesting options but none you are going to be able to wear all of the time, so upgrading one of these two light sets is still almost mandatory.

I meant on GOG. I mostly ignore Steam unless the game isn't available through GOG or Humble any more. Has the Steam Summer Sale even started yet?

----

Anyway, I have played a bit of Long Live the Queen. First death: assassin that came out of the parade. Second death? Chocolates.

I am in a love/hate relationship with Long Live the Queen right now. I love the game in that I can't stop playing it, but I hate the game in how hard it is to just not die.

The trailer didn't lie.

Try maxing out Divination. It is one of the most versatile skills in the game and will save Elodie more than once, as long as it's high enough.

I am getting a PS4 and Bloodborne on Friday .

Also The Last Of Us Remastered..... But still Bloodborne .

I'm doing my first playthrough of Dark Souls now. Just killed the O&S duo.

What equipment are you using?

Jack is on ps4.

Jack also has the Last of Us Remastered, Bloodborne, and Far Cry 4.

I shall see you all midnight Saturday when I shall feel obligated to post the 4CM results. Until then, adios.

It turns out installing takes forever.

@eph, okay back to the details. What are you using and what do you like about the game so far?

The starting Sorcerer set, Dusk's crown, Bellowing Dragoncrest/Wolf rings and a Silver Knight shield. Oh, and an Enchanted Longsword +2 as a backup.

Weapon? If you are still using the default catalyst, then I would recommend going down to Lost Izalith and killing the 2nd boss there for its weapon.

Wow Jack's power went out and the correction was lost to history.


Um..... I'll expand later but:

< 27 Int -> Demon's
27 - 40 Int -> Sorcerer's/Beatrice's
41+ Int -> Logan's
32+ Int if you don't mind having your spell uses halved -> Tin Crystallization
30+ if you want to focus on dark magic -> Manus's

That's basically the list of best catalysts right there.

Demon's Catalyst can be gotten from second boss in Lost Izalith.
Sorcerer's is starting equipment and Beatrice's ... <- I forget?
Logan's and Tin Crystallization can both be gotten post-Seathe from Logan's quest line (assuming you did the whole thing).
Manus's is of course from his soul from the final dlc boss.

So a bit more on that.

Um....... there is a build with Dark Magic where the Demon's Catalyst actually does a really good job. Demon's Catalyst is the 2nd best catalyst for dark sorceries, is an okay melee weapon, and has D scaling in STR/DEX. <- Because 2 of the 3 offensive dark sorceries only need 16 dex, this is a good weapon to diversify with if you wanted to add some sorcery to a mostly melee build. But for actual sorceries it is crap.

If you want to get it, then just kill the 2nd boss of Lost Izalith. 100% drop. The real reason most people use this is for dark magic AND getting to use Pursuers on playthrough 1.


Sorcerer's and Beatrice's catalyst are exactly the same. Beatrice's is.... late game? while Griggs sells the Sorcerer's Catalyst for 500 souls. Up through 40 INT, the sorcerer's catalyst outdamages almost everything. The exceptions occur with the tin crystallization catalyst, which is a very special case, and dark sorceries.

At 41 Int, Logan's scaling outweights the slightly better stats of the other two, and that's now the best. Logan's Catalyst can be found where Big Hat Logan was selling you things after he goes crazy in the Duke's Archives. This occurs if you buy everything from him after killing Seathe (which means Seathe won't be hogging the room up top where Logan spawns as an enemy) and then leave the area. The important part of all this is that he skips this room but can still appear up top if you don't do his quests, and you kind of need him to be in this room for the chest to show up with this catalyst after you kill him. The Tin Crystallization catalyst is what you get off of his dead body, and that's easier to get since Logan goes crazy reguardless of what happens. That is the most damaging catalyst in the game, BUT your spell uses are halved. You know what the trick is with that? Equip a bunch of things that only have 1 use and be amazed. <- But um..... it's usually not worth the extra damage?

Manus's Catalyst, along with Pursuer's, is one of two possible things you can trade his soul for. You can get this by upgrading another catalyst (hopefully a spare sorcerer's) at +10 into a boss weapon. You can also get pursuers by trading the soul with snuggly the crow.

For Talismans, it is a lot more simple. Thorolund's -> Canvas -> Darkmoon depending on what your FTH level is.

I think that Evolve has a predatory dlc model that is not good for anyone who participates in it in the long run.

The game still costs $60. For this, you get 12 hunters and 3 monsters. The other 4 hunters cost you another $25, and the other monster costs you another $15. So if you want the 25% of the game that is missing, you are going to have to pay $100 for it rather than $60. But there's going to be two more hunters for $10 and a 5th monster for another $15, so realistically you are going to have to pay $125 versus $60 for only about another 1/2 to 2/3 content?

^^ The reason this is at all relevant to me is that I think it would be more fun to play on ps4 than pc, because my pc is having some issues with the graphical interface, but I was able to get everything for $40 on pc. Versus........ $125. <- That's stupidly ridiculous right there.

And I'm telling you right now the dlc is not worth paying full price for. I KNOW that. I own the current stuff on ps4, and the only must have is the monster.

I have maxed out Divination more than once, but it hasn't felt like it's done all that much for me, for the most part. The times I wish I had more in the stat are for the things that don't seem to show up when I do train it, like the candles blowing out on their own.

I've actually won once already since I last posted, though I'm not entirely sure how. I was preparing for the Lumen king from across the sea to come, but he never did and instead I got the Kraken. Somehow I managed to seal it and still survive the other dozen turns until I won. My main focus right now is trying to figure out how to keep Charlotte around so that I can make her a magical girl.

Impression Number 1 of Bloodborne:

If you are a series veteran here for the experience, play offline for the first 15 minutes or so.

The sheer number of messages spammed all over the place, at least in the starting place, got in the way a bit and is quite experience shattering. Since the tutorial messages are the same as the player messages, you basically end up being unable to read any of the tutorial messages as well.

^^ This is an argument for playing offline in general too. There are some very lore worthy and generally just very important messages I have an inkling will be hard to find later. And the Hunter's Dream just looks awful with all the player messages spammed everywhere.

A quick note. Jack forgot to pick a class so I'm using the MilqueToast. It's my second choice anyways so whatever.

Now when the game begins I ran out and died to the first enemy on purpose. This is an EXPERIENCE and I wanted to visceral attack him. But since I don't know the controls for that yet I ended up screwing it up . Well.... not on purpose I guess but messing around yes.

You'll end up in the Hunter's Dream on first death and you'll get to pick weapons. I recommend getting the saw cleaver. The axe is a little more damaging but gets fewer hits in and it's moveset isn't as good. The threaded cane on the other hand doesn't do as much damage yet. And you can easily buy both of the others later. I also recommend getting the Hunter Pistol. It's more useful, imo, in the starting area. You will also get and probably never use the notebook, used to leave messages for other people. Jack does not feel like contributing to the obvious spam here. Maybe later in the game?

If you walk around, the bath messenger shop is the only really important spot right now. Sells blood vials, quicksilver bullets, molotovs for 180 a piece. Pebbles for 10 a piece. The yharnam hunter set (get for free early in game so don't buy) for 500 a piece or 2000 for the set, and not really anything else right now.

Going back to the 1st floor sickroom at the Yharnam Headstone, we notice our first missable event here . The door is now shut up where we came from. Hmmm..... interesting. Talk to the lady in the room, and in the words of "EpicNameBro" make sure to look at her hand. Nothing is in it yet. She gives you Iosefka's Blood Vial. While doing this first area, you can keep coming back for these. It's a very very powerful healing item you can only carry one of at a time.

If you look around here, the game has a couple new tutorial messages in this room but not much else new. Moving into the next room, THAT DOG STOLE OUR BLOOD ECHOS. Yep. New system. Your bloodstain will occasionally get up and walk around. It's very easy to kill him now with the saw cleaver though. Note: Saw cleaver has hidden 20% bonus damage versus beasts.

Past the dog, we'll find 2 blood vials in the corner. Other than that, we've got our first main door. A quick run down of the controls:

L2 - gun and some special attacks with some weapons; use the gun to parry or "interrupt" during enemy attacks mostly
L1 - transform your weapon
R2 - heavy attack; can be charged for backstabs
R1 - light attack or visceral attack on a staggered enemy
Triangle - use a blood vial
Circle - rolling, running, etc.
Square - quick items
X - Use Environmental Object

Exploring this next Courtyard, you'll notice a locked gate on the right and some quicksilver bullets before an unlocked one ahead. More blood vials can be found in the dead end right in front of the gate, while going right leads us to our first Yharnamite enemy . The next gate is also locked to force us to go this way of coursed. I recommend the extended transformed version of the saw cleaver for these guys, because your reach is bigger. A second guy is further down this path and when you try to go for the item at the end (molotovs) a 3rd will surprise you when you try to break the stuff.

Going back to where we got the most recent set of vials, the lever drops a ladder. A quick orientation. Look off to your left when you are climbing the ladder. See the big bridge? That's where the first, optional boss you can fight is. Also the easiest boss in the game. The bridge wayyyy in the distance and lower is how we actually exit this area, but fighting the first boss is recommended.

Reaching the top of the ladder, we find our second lantern . This is solely here for A) convenience but more importantly B) so people aren't FORCED to die in the tutorial. If you run out and light this and kill the one guy that is going to come up the ladder after you, then you can get to the dream without that first death. But.... you don't get to leisurely go through that first area. Pros and cons.

Notice the red lantern. this is an incense burner. It means that there is an npc in the window we can talk to. Generally that's the case for all houses. Most of them are useless, but some of them are very important, and this one is a nice sidequest we want to keep up just by talking to him after every story event. It's GILBERT.

So pros and cons of returning to the dream here. Your character DOES get fully healed. But those 4 enemies we just beat will respawn. Um..... it is probably worth it here. Especially since I forgot to talk to and mention Gehrman up in the haunted house over there.

A list of items in the dream while here:
- bottomless box: store items AND automatically stores a certain number of extras you pick up when you can't carry them
- workshop: fortify and repair weaons
- memory alter: equip runes once we've beaten a later optional area
- stump messenger: equip messenger accessories and a few other miscellania
- chalice dungeon headstones: can do chalice rituals to open optional dungeons here
- bath shop: spend blood echoes for items
- insight shop: once you have at least 1 insight you can (as of the latest patch; used to be 10) buy stuff here; NEVER go below 1 insight and once you reach the area of the game where mind flayers exist don't ever go below 3
- doll: once you have 1 insight you can use her to level up.
- locked gate: ITS A MYSTERY!!!

The most important thing I want to point out on this second trip is that the outer rim between the doll and the locked gate has the rest of the tutorial control messages. They are all very important and it's all the NON common sense ones, so have a read. The one I'm going to talk about here is regain. If you take damage, damaging an enemy immediately after will let you regain some of that health back.

Moving on, back to yharnam. You may notice that Jack has no concept of time in these games . I kept doing the loop we just did until I could pay 2500 for the Hunter Garb. Because I wanted to practice a few moves and such. Notice that the beast does not respawn. After the first time I just dropped down the ladder . These guys can drop blood vials for us so it IS worth it a bit to do this too. However it is only 144 a run and we should only have started this process with 679, so 2500 does take a bit. My reason for it is that the armor we can buy, even though we will get it later in this area, is much much better than the foreign garb we have now, and it is worth getting for the hour or so of relatively hard areas between us and the world location.

BTW, make sure to read EVERY item. They all have lore, it's all really good lore, and that's part of playing this game. A noteworthy fact (I'll keep mentioning these when I think of them), equip burden isn't a thing anymore so don't you dare take off your armor. Unless you want to. Armor also can no longer be upgraded. The interview in the guide explains that, saying that in Demon's Souls they were upset that armor was completely useless and in Dark Souls didn't scale that well compared to enemies. So in this game we are back to no upgrades BUT your armor is now percentage based and will get stronger as you do. Or....... that's what the guide claims in that interview. I might have to do more research on exactly how this works.

It's also worth noting that you can't go hollow in this game. FASHION SOULS. This is very good so our characters don't look ugly as sin for 90% of the game. What happens now is that your character model will deteriorate and gain blood spatter on it as you take and deal damage. So missing some health might leave a hole in your face, while a visceral attack might leave your armor a little gooey.

Oh. The first hunter out of the 3 down below takes 4 hits with the cleaver, while the others take 2? I don't know if this is just because I hit them as they are standing up or not. You can do extra damage to an enemy by hitting them while they are doing an evasive action or attacking. But the same applies to you.

On further note, make sure to save those molotovs for the 1st boss. We are playing by Demon's Souls rules here . Um...... they let you do a lot of damage to it while not being in its face?

Anyways, it's also worth noting that it is VERY rare for an armor set to be completely outclassed by another armor set, and this is one of the few examples this early on in the game of where this might happen.

At 1399 souls I figured I would just go ahead anyways. I'm tired of farming these guys . Continuing down the path, we find 8 Pebbles. An obvious luring item, it is used to get enemies away from the group without making a ton of noise. This is also worth noting. You can sneak up on some enemies by walking when running would alert them, and guns make A LOT of noise. Ahead is a slightly tougher yharnam dude but he's still a little weaker than the first torch guy. Heading further down the path, we fight our first torch and shield guy and another guy that is going to stand up and help him. Kill the guy on the ground first, while the shield guy is turning around. Then make sure not to piss off the mob walking by. Making a u-turn, we can go back down the path and use a lever to open a gate near the 1st torch guy. This game is going to be very interconnected. We also now have a slightly less boring farming loop? Um.... no not doing that. I did kill them for the 144 souls though (screw it I'm calling them souls). That put me at 1687 . Heading back down through that gate, the cleaver guy killed me. And I got very lucky and the torch guy spawned with my echoes. I also only used 3 blood vials and one bullet in that fiasco, so I've got 10 and 17 of those left (did have to go get another Iosefka's though). Note this location: we will come back to mess with this guy later. Sigh. Using this slightly bigger loop to stave off boredom, I did just go ahead and grab the rest of the souls needed to reach 2500. I figured it would take me about 2.5 more trips and it did.

^^ Now this might sound as boring as *** to you but I am loving it so far.

So major story lore on the items so far? Well our default set doesn't have much. The molotovs say "Since the tragedy that struck Old Yharnam, fire has become a staple in beast hunts, and is thought to cleanse impurity." That might be important later. The Hunter's Mark says "By focusing one's thoughts on this rune, a hunter loses all Blood Echoes, but awakens afresh, as if it were all just a bad dream." Huh. Interesting lore there . Is it just all a dream? The saw cleaver says "The saw, with its set of blood-letting teeth, has become a symbol of the hunt, and only grows in effectiveness the more grotesquely transformed the beast." THIS IS YOUR HINT. It's got bonus damage against beast class enemies. Finally, the Yharnam Hunter gear says "Ludwig, the first hunter of the Healing Church, once recruited Yharnamites to serve as hunters". Interesting lore as well, this is part of the lore implying that we used to work for the church maybe? In the back of the workshop we also have this note: "To escape this dreadful Hunter's Dream, halt the source of the spreading scourge of beasts, lest the night carry on forever". interesting. Talking to Gilbert right now is just telling us to go to the Cathedral Ward via the giant bridge, so be wary there. THAT IS where we want to end up eventually, but you know it's not going to be that easy.

Most importantly, the hunter garb lets us see my characters hair a lot easier AND it's more defensive. Fashion Souls.

Between typing this and playing, my game time is already at .... I can't seem to find it in the menus. It is also at this point in time that I'm going go go kill that cleaver guy because YOLO and who cares? We don't have enough souls or any form of humanity to worry about. Speaking of, the only way online can intrude on your game is if you let it. I have it turned off because I'm not doing co-op yet and you can't be invaded or contacted in any way if you aren't doing co-op? And the messages are annoying me. So .... fun fun fun.

I do not see any items near the meat cleaver guy? Um...... this is the point in time where Jack opens up the guide. "Since there's nothing to be gained from entering the alley....." Noob trap. Got it. Ok ignoring that now. Now you may have seen where you can drop off? Be warned that this is not the sneaky way to do this. But you can drop off right after the 1st enemy after the lantern and fight a guy. The body behind him has 4 molotovs. And we can talk to another npc. YAY. He seems nice. Not very helpful though. Here we can look up the street and yep. The mob hasn't started moving yet. Maybe it's a triggered event? Stepping on the stairs causes them to start moving, and we can see that there isn't really any items down that alley between stairs so if you die here it's just a matter of where you want to enter. Also worth noting: Fire Hot.

If you wait at the bottom of the stairs, one pitch fork guy on patrol will come by and you can lure him back up them. The same for a torch and axe guy. And another one..... hmmm Jack has discovered a good place to lure people in 1s and 2s. Across from the stairs is another npc that will yell at you. Behind the stage coach will be an enemy and some stairs we want to take to avoid the BIG mob. Up the stairs to your right will be a blood stone shard and an enemy. This is your first upgrade material .

3, 5, and 8 for each tier of upgrade in each triplet. Shards -> Twin Shards -> Chunks. Then +10 with a blood rock. That's how the upgrade system works in this game. No fancy multi-path stuff anymore. In my opinion it's a bit of an improvement? Watch out for the guy on the stoop to the right right after these stairs. You are supposed to do this next part a bit at a time and lure them? Um..... Jack managed to kill all but one and then died to a gun guy. Figures. Um..... coming back the 2nd time I was able to get my echoes. The really dangerous parts here are 3 fold tipwise:

1) Rush the gun guys if they spot you. Those are by far the most dangerous enemies.
2) Rush the dog once most of the humans are gone and deal with him behind the carriage.
3) Do not take on the whole freaking mob at once. This is dumb. There's like 10 of them, 2 gun guys, AND a dog.

After they are all dead we can pick up the random loot around the square. The most important thing to note is we'll get our first blood item. This is like the soul items of last game, meaning we want to WAIT to use it to level up.

Since I lost track between all the chaos, this is where the guide comes in . Um..... yeah it's just bullets, vials, and dew in this square. Cool.

I have to go in 10 minutes (wow it's been 2 hours already?) for lunch, so here's a look at what's coming up and a few gameplay tips.

Central Yharnum has the following NOTABLE loot:
- 1x Saw Spear
- 2x Madman's Knowledge
- 1x Hunter's Attire
- 1x Red Jeweled Brooch
- 1x Saw Hunter Badge
- 1x Gem Workshop Tool

The saw spear, in its saw form, also has bonus damage vs beasts? I'm not sure about the spear form (and yes, this is a thing). It's probably the most damaging weapon with a ton of reach this early on, and it's notable due to it's really good thrusting attacks. Some enemies are much weaker to thrust and/or only weak to thrust so... In addition, any weapon is notable gear because there are only 15 in the game and each is unique AND has a reason to use it over the others.

The Hunter's Attire (btw all attire is notable gear bc FASHION SOULS but this one in particular IS notable) is not the same as the attire you get from the shop. It's got higher physical defense but lower magic defense. <- I was wrong about that btw. The shop attire is unique so DEFINITELY buy it at some point here. It's only 2500 souls.

The Red Jeweled Brooch is a missable (but obvious) item after the 2nd boss. More on this unique thing later.

The Saw Hunter Badge allows you to purchase the Saw Cleaver, Hunter Axe, Threaded Cane, Hunter Pistol, Hunter Blunderbuss, and the Saw Spear if you didn't pick it up in the blood echoes shop in the dream. You should always start with the cleaver (I mean, even on a STR build the cleaver is best), but it's good to have this for experimentation purposes . Every weapon is unique, and just because I say a couple of them are crap unupgraded doesn't mean there isn't a purpose to them later. Since all of these are well within most people's stats budget, I recommend buying any of them you plan to be able to use EVER (same with all one time items honestly) in the shop after getting this badge.

So..... a special word on Madman's Knowledge. Normally, I am not going to bother pointing out where common items that aren't unique are. But these two are special. So.... the guide recommends you be level 25 - 35 to do this area? With a +3 weapon. <- What the hell? btw. But that's basically what you would need to do the area safely. It's HEAVILY RECOMMENDED you level up to 20 before fighting the bosses? To do this you need to get at least 1 insight somehow. The problem is that here is the insight table for the area:

1 for meeting first boss
3 for beating first boss
Some more for various things with the 2nd boss

There isn't a way to get insight before fighting either boss, and thus level up. EXCEPT Madman's Knowledge, which is a consumable that gives you 1 Insight. That's why they are notable in this area. They let you level up without going on the main bridge and **** with the main boss.

^^ I will point out the location of all of these items later.


In addition, there are 3 more npc side quests (not including the clinic; keeping taking vials from here whenever you use one please) we want to at least start before fighting either boss, and I will say where those are later as well.


But for right now, some tips:

1) Explore.

Only 7 bosses in the game are required. Entire areas of the game are optional. And to be realistic you can just run past everything. But you won't have fun, and you won't be a good level for doing things later, so make sure to explore. The next two tips are corrolaries to this one.

2) Blood Echoes come and go. Do not worry about it.

That's it. Don't freak out. At some point you are going to lose 10K+ soul echoes. You shouldn't care . That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to get them, but it really is not a big deal at all if you lose them. This isn't Dark Souls II. You can always get more. Worrying about soul echoes ruins the game for you, because A) you aren't having as much fun playing it and B) no amount of blood echoes lost is a big deal in the long run. If it's ever really bad you can just go farm really really easily in this game.

3) Don't be afraid to explore. <- If we start out with the idea that 2) is a core tenet, then what do you have to lose? What could you possibly lose by exploring as much of this game as possible? Doing so gets you more items, more UNIQUE ITEMS, brings you more fun, and opens up more shortcuts which makes running back to the boss's a lot easier as well. This game is designed to be far more fun when you explore and don't sweat the little things such as losing thousands of souls or dying. And there really isn't much of a penalty to death anymore. We don't have a humanity system to worry about. Souls are meaningless because Jack told you so (or you shouldn't worry about it at least). Consumables can just be bought in the dream relatively cheaply. What does death really cost you here, other than a little bit of time where you experiences something new (hopefully)?

4) Take your time. Those echoes don't mean anything right? Every area is best done by taking your time to fight enemies 1 or 2 at a time and slowly exploring the area. I mean hell, jack is going on 3 hours for the first 20 minutes of gameplay here because he took his time and **** it I am enjoying myself. If you don't take your time, you are going to have a bad time. You will die more often AND you will get less out of the game because you won't notice as much because you are rushing. There is nothing worth rushing for in this game. Despite the overarching narrative telling you otherwise . Nothing is timed. There is no reason to stress about anything. And deaths are meaningless. If you take your time and enjoy yourself, you'll get a lot farther and have a lot more fun.

5) Be willing to google it if you are having trouble. If you are really stuck, and it's not fun for you to stay stuck (Jack likes to stay stuck but Jack will also jump off cliffs in Dark Souls because he likes the view so Jack is not a good example), then staying "blind" is far worse than just googling the specific answer to your problem. Fun is more important than avoiding help because you want to do it yourself.

6) And you know what? There is nothing wrong with letting the first boss kill you so you get to level up. I fully recommend it as a tactic. It's not like I didn't just go out and get enough to level up twice by killing all the enemies in a nearby square is it?


^^ I think these 6 tips are something that everyone needs to learn if they want to have fun with this game. A very large number of people don't explore, sweat every blood echo lost, and really don't like dying. For them, this game sucks. I think there was an article by a guy who hates the game that basically illustrates my point? The guy basically got pissed because the game was "repetive", he had to spend 15 minutes getting back to the boss, he didn't get to level up at all before the boss where he lost all his blood echoes, and overall he just hated the game. Further, the article stresses that couldn't explore at all without dying and not being able to get his souls back. OVER AND OVER AND OVER. This is the exact wrong mentality here. If he had explored some more to find shortcuts (15 minutes by GAD that guy sucked at this game), not cared about losing his echoes, and overall just took his time he would have had a better experience. Hell, if the guy had picked up google he would have been able to cut his run to the boss by a factor of 4 or greater. His number 1 complaint was that the game doesn't have a map? This is almost everyone I've heard complaining about Bloodborne. Yes. The game is hard. But it's supposed to be hard and sweating the difficulty does no one any favors.

And...... this post clocked in at 2 hours 50 minutes. Wow.

Continuing where we left off, it is 5:05 PM and this is Jack playing Bloodborne.

The way forward from this square is a gate up the left stairs. To the left hidden by some barrels will be a second blood stone shard. For posterity, Jack has 2473 souls after doing that square 1.75 times. Straight ahead you'll find two blood vials and more stairs. Ignoring the stairs for a second, let's go past them. you can talk to some more npc that will yell at you, and hidden by the coffins to the left is a drop down. So..... drop down? Kill the 3 dogs up here, and continue past them instead of going down. Go past the stairs up here too and open the door far across from here. There isn't any super important treasure in this house, but upstairs is an exit close to the boss and heading directly across one will come out near another blood shard and an enemy. Let's go that way. Up here is the gate leading to our first lantern. We have now opened up the shortcuts close to the first boss . Let's return to the dream for a second. Walk to the workshop, and let's fortify our weapon to +1. Fortifying repairs your weapon also btw, for future notice. Heading back through the gate we just entered, everything has respawned so be careful. Now we can 3 hit enemies . Down the stairs past the dark house are two bigger enemies. They won't come up the stairs all the way, so there is something to retreat to. Try to kill both of them, keeping in mind we can't stagger them unless you have learned how to parry (Jack can't yet). But strong attacks work really well if you can fight them one at a time via luring. Going up these stairs past them, we'll see the dark house to our right. This was just another way through. Going up the stairs in front of us will lead to a dew at a dead end. Right just leads to the dark house. In front of us are the kennels.

Try to kill all the dogs in the kennels while they are still in the cages (keeping in mind that they can break out). To the left before the bridge is a dew and another dog. Across the bridge is a house where we can save that lady later but not now. Still.... kill the dog. Past her is a warehouse with MUCH tougher enemies. This is our next stop? And i died to one of them. Note the dog across the bridge doesn't respawn in the kennel area. Sigh. I died falling off the raftors this time? Dropping down in one of these locations gives you the saw spear near some rats. The rats killed me on low health so I don't remember the EXACT location. Um..... this is a harder area? Let it just be known that we will be coming back to it. Let's try the actual boss first since we've lost all our souls shall we?

When you exit the top floor of the dark house, don't go to the right. Those beasts are bothering no one, and we don't need to bother them yet. To our left will be a big guy and some ravens. Let us kill them? The big guy is like the other two we met, while the ravens attack about 5 feet directly in front of them in a charge and that's it? That and they rotate. Now.... this guy killed me after I got about 1/2 it's health? I had 6 blood vials left and I basically let it. You wake up in the dream with a point of insight and that is what we went there for. Killing the boss would have been nice but Jack wasn't ready yet? I'm still not going to spoil the boss, since I'll do that in a strat section.

We can now talk to the doll and level up. YAY. Using the dew I've found so far, I had 2400 souls. My initial stat split was 11/10/12/10/9/8. Now if we look at the saw cleaver, it has a D in STR and an E in skill. So what I did was I leveled up my STR to 13 and I leveled up my VIT to 12. Raising your STR has a +2 effect on the damage, and raising vit adds some health. AND BOTH add physical defense, which we want.

Now so far we've been feeling out the area eh?

Area with stronger enemies and rats? Tough.
1st Boss? Tough.

^^ This is our list of areas not to go to yet . So go to the dark house, go outside up top, and drop down directly across. Well...... i am lost. So okay. That is obviously the dark house over there again. I go back to level up again (putting a point in Skill to raise it to 11) and .... I guess I am going to have to get unlost? I keep forgetting to mention this, but don't sell stuff for blood echoes. That ain't ever worth it.

The goal here now is to find where we dropped down at the kennels. This means we have to go past the mob in the square again. Be careful . After a net gain of 3 blood vials I've killed everyone in the square. We are now back where we want to be. Instead of dropping down to the kennels, carefully enter the square. Heading straight across we can get that itme we saw a bit earlier which is a dew. Don't approach the axe guy yet. He dangerous, and the items are minorish. Note the locked gate across from the dew. We'll come back for the executioner much later when we open that. Um.... and this is where the big guy surprises me from behind? Not an axe guy, just another big one with a brick. He was guarding torches and molotovs. Heading up the stairs we'll fight some dogs and more yharnumites. Heading up the further stairs we can turn left for another shard. to the right are those BIG dogs we are avoiding so avoid them. Notice there is now a boss fog past them. Neat. Straight past them we'll come to an area with two bloodstone shards and some pebbles. You can drop down to the bonfire area or you can drop down to the left. Before dropping down to the left, let's go back to where the big guy was guarding the torch.

Directly across from where I found the torch are some crow demons. You will notice they are guarding some coffins blocking an item. That is an oil urn. Dropping down where we found the shards... And.... we are in the sewers again. MORE SPECIFICALLY, we are in the area where we would climb up to get out of the sewers. Now this is important to note, because now we have explored all avenues open to us. And yes, Jack is doing this relatively blind. We can now climb back up, return to the dream, and make some hardish? decisions. Now I was able to level up twice . I put 1 point in str, and then i put one point in Vit. I'm going to keep this rotation up for a bit into the future, where i do STR->VIT->SKILL->Repeat

Now that I've repaired my weapon, we have a decision to make? Explore more or boss? We are in the enviable position of having almost no souls to worry about, and two hard challenges to take on . Makes your eye twinkle a bit doesn't it?

5 minutes later.....

Jack has it!!! We are going to mess with some of the enemies we have declared too much trouble to be worth it. Let's go screw with the executioner dude.

Now, assuming you are smart and reading a bit ahead, you would have avoided this guy. We've got nothing to lose though right? Jack is level 15 and on a mission. A pointless mission. AND JACK DIED.

*please hold for techincal difficulties*

So. What happens? Well Jack types something funny, expecting a lot of deaths, and then gets a visceral attack and in a very close fight kills the guy after only 1 failed attempt. WEAK. Let's go fight the dogs on the bridge next . Jack spends all but 3 souls in the echoes shop to avoid losing them here.

Wow. 973 souls. Soooo.... the trick to these guys is that they get stuck in the door to that dark house . So lure them over there and be very careful about when you choose to attack them.

Now back to the sewers. Note. These tough enemies CAN drop blood stone shards. Let us clear out hte top area first. Go down the stairs to fight one guy. Ahead of you is another, while to the right is a third and a gun guy. The gun guys are the true monsters of these areas. Walking outside, there's a gun guy across the bridge, a lycan (that's what I call them) walking about, and a gun guy to your left. Try to kill the one to your left and then the lycan in the hiding spot from the one across the bridge. The rest of this upper area has some crow demons and some urns, but realistically we want to kill these gun guys so they don't give us trouble later. Don't drop down yet though.

Instead, let us go back into the building we cleared and retry the rafters. Hidden by some boxes in the entrance, we can shoot down some bodies with our gun and CAREFULLY so we don't fall off. Falling down the side in the lower room nearest to the door gets you the saw spear I got earlier. In the lower area two rats are guarding a madman's knowledge. BTW rats can drop throwing knives. Very useful if you don't want to die to the cleric beast. Don't ever use a madman's knowledge unless you know you want to spend that insight immediately though. Having too much insight is a bad thing. We come out in that middle area near the ladder. Go back in and drop down the other side. And we grab two blood stone shards. NEAT. Climb up the ladder again. You'll notice an item on a beam in the distance. Try to drop down and get it. And .... it's another blood stone shard. I got two from lycans, so that puts jack at 8 . 5 more for a +3 and I can get a +2 next hunter's dream (assuming I have souls to buy it). Dropping down, you'll notice we come out near a ladder. There are some guys in a pit below next to an item. Don't mess with them yet. Climb the BIG ladder. To the right at the top are some crow demon's guarding another madman's knowledge. Across the bridge is a big guy and a lantern that has gone out. The npc inside? Still hates you so it's all good.

Coming up the ladder past the big guy, we have arrived at the little girl's house. Talk to her, promise to find her parents, pull the lever, and then rush back down the ladder as the gate is opening to avoid the area we've already been to.

Now this is a side quest we can start on now? The little girl says her mum has a red jeweled brooch and that we should find her. She also gives us a music box that is supposed to help calm down her dad if we run into him, since mummy went looking for him and forgot to take it. We must give it to her so that she can make her husband listen.

Edit: looking at the guide, I guess we need to go back to the other sewer's entrance? at some point. That's where the hunter's attire is.

Um...... just don't mess with the guys in the pit? they are guarding 10 quicksilver bullets. Nothing worth dying over. Going down and to the right, run past all the enemies and don't go down the boar tunnel. Take the ladder up and at the bridge go left to step on and use an elevator. We are near the two big guys near the kennels? Crossing that bridge isn't worth it at all, as we are prone to accidentally run into the second boss and there arne't any major items over there. If you RUN and get behind the boar before it starts charging, you can strafe behind it to be relatively safe. It dropped some dew for me and it was guarding the saw hunter badge. Um.... past that, do not jump in the pit. Go left like a sane person. Well wow. We are on the other side of that bridge lol. This approach has the side effect that the guy who was about to punch the flaming boulder ambush will still do it and kill everyone on the bridge. Past them are two guys guarding 2 bold hunter's marks (basically homeward bones), and past that really is the second boss so beware. Let us use a mark now and return to the dream.

Now if you look at the store, it also now sells pungent blood cocktails (alluring skull) and throwing knifes. YAY. More importantly, all weapons we can encounter in central yharnum are on sale because of the badge.

It is here that Jack levels up twice (str and skill up 1) and buys the hunter's axe. I also did the obvious and upgrade my saw cleaver to +2. Then i spent the rest on blood vials.

Now we have located both bosses. YAY. The last thing to do is go to the sewer entrance near the bonfire. Let's do so now and drop down. AND WOW my saw cleaver +2 is one shotting some enemies. Nice. The other guys still take 3, but we now 1 shot weaker yharnumites and dogs.

Wow. We can also 4 shot some lycans . Deal with the three down here and then try to drop down on that beam for the thick coldbllood? And **** it the rat and lycan kill Jack. And **** I almost got what I wanted but I died? Okay this area before you drop down again is where you get the hunter's attire. Jack is going to just keep making mad dashes at this point to get it until he does. It's on the left right before you drop down from here to the silver bullet guys. And i made a mad dash for those while i'm at it .

Going back to the dream for a second, after I of course died (don't run past enemies in Bloodborne unless there's a boss fog to protect you). I used the thick coldblood for the 1500 echoes to get the threaded cane. I now have everything except the blunderbuss from the shop .

I put on the hunter set because it let's us have slightly better physical defense at the cost of some magical and thrust defense. For the two bosses we are about to do, this is better.

So...... it's 7:40 PM here. It's been 2 and a half hours just about . I'm going to log off for a while, and next post will be the 3rd major side quest here as well as the two bosses. Until then..... well enjoy spending 10 minutes reading what just took me almost 3 hours to write.

Oh yeah. Before I forget. Stats.

What do they do?
Level up = more phys defense.

Vit = More heath. Between this and defense this is the survivability stat.
Endurance = more stamina. Like...... yeah.
STR/SKILL = more damage from most of your melee weapons
Bloodtinge = more damage from guns and one particular weapon later on
Arcane = more damage from elemental effects and hunter tools (magic items); also raises luck a little

^^ Basically I'm not putting stats into the stamina bar, gun damage, or magic damage right now, because those stats are a lot more limited than straight up survivability and melee damage.


This is going to sound like heresy but....... stamina doesn't really do **** in this game. Due to how the battle system works, and how aggressive enemies are, you are either going to 1 to 3 shot something OR you are going to 1 or 2 hit it and roll away. Using the entire stamina bar is not uncommon, but it's a crapload harder than in past games.

In Dark Souls, Demon's Souls, and Dark Souls 2; stamina had many uses. Rolling, shield, attacking, running, equip burden, etc. <- Between the other stats that endurance raised and the fact that you are so reliant on shielding, attacking, AND THEN rolling away...... endurance was a must have stat. Well in bloodborne..... everythign uses less stamina than in previous games. And endurance does nothing BUT increase your stamina by 1 or 2 points this time around. You need to dump 5+ points into it to get any benefit at all from the skill, and .... well using your entire stamina bar doesn't really put you into negative situations if you are playing correctly. Thus, players have discovered that they have zero problems when putting absolutely nothing into endurance and leaving it at 10. That is why I'm not raising it at all yet.

Bloodtinge and Arcane are just both extremely niche and I don't even have something I want to use them with. I don't want to use magic (because it's so **** expensive when it comes to bullets AND you need way too many points in arcane to make it worth it), and neither stat being low prevents you from equipping any GOOD weapons. So basically I'm going to raise them once I hit soft caps in other things?