1724

That should actually pop up on the screen every time you enter a new area.

1725

I didn’t get to play much yesterday. After that pig run and the resulting 100+ blood vials, I did beat those hunters and managed to reach the very familiar Research Hall. I feel like the majority of my total time playing Bloodborne has been in this research hall. Remember all those years when I couldn’t beat Living Failures?

Man, I’m having PTSD flashbacks just thinking about it. Hopefully I can get there tonight and just get it out of the way fast.

1726

it’s funny. When you reach the point of the Witch of Hemwick you again collected 20,000+ souls … well I guess, I have to fight her with souls loaded.

1727

Ok, so yesterday, I cleaned out everything in the Research Hall that I could find. I tried to find every little treasure and corner in the place like last time, but last time I remember getting on the balcony and opening that door, but I couldn’t find it this time.

Still, I did get to Living Failures, and I thought I could get them on the first try. Right at the end I got too greedy and was brought down. Noooooooo!

I tried again, and died even sooner this time. A dread was building within me now. Oh my god, don’t tell me my playthrough ends here because I’m stuck on this easy-seeming fight yet again. At least being stuck on Lady Maria feels justified, because it’s actually a really hard fight.

I got close about 2 or 3 more times, but died before the end of the fight. I tried to calm myself and just remind myself that it’s a fight that’s all about patience. I had 23 blood vials. All I needed to do was attack and back off, attack and back off, and just concentrate on staying alive and eventually the enemy would be dead.

I died.

Luckily the defensive strategy eventually paid off. Just backing away, not getting sucked into attacking too much did win. Phew. Thank the good lord.

Lady Maria was interesting this time around. I feel less vulnerable this time. I’m not sure why exactly. But I got her down to less than half health each of the three attempts I made on her. This feels like major progress. When I go after her with my other character (who was also stuck here before I went back to the Nightmare areas), I can seldom even get her to the half-way point when she starts spraying blood everywhere. Hopefully I can overcome her.

It’s also interesting look at these character builds now. I loaded up my old character, who is level 79 after 56 hours of play. My current character is 84 after only 37 hours. My old character had nearly all points invested in vitality and endurance, and with 30 in Strength. My current character has 50 strength, and only 25 endurance and about 30 Vitality, much lower than other character.

I think I’m going to enjoy the Lady Maria fight this time around. I am so far. It’s like a fight against a hunter, which I’ve been really digging this time around. Using a shotgun to interrupt hunters is not something I can do reliably, but eventually I do get lucky with my timing, and it’s pretty satisfying.

By the way, after I beat Living Failures, I took all those hard won Blood Echoes and I went back to the vendor and bought more Blood vials with them. I had been running low again.

So here’s my choices on where to go next:

  1. Lady Maria in DLC
  2. Nightmare Frontier & the river of poison!
  3. Nightmare of Mensis - hidden elevator shortcut (where my old character was)
  4. Nightmare of Mensis - regular route through the pigs, I’ve never gone past the pigs so I have no idea what’s waiting here.

So even this late in the game, plenty of choices on what to tackle next. I like my Whirligig character much better than my old Hunter’s Axe character. I tried a bit of the old Hunter’s axe again last night. It’s not as fun. The Whirligig has got a faster option (the mace) and a more damaging longer range option.

1728

This post inspired me. You know how this game makes you feel really clever whenever you use an elevator in a non-traditional way to find a shortcut or a hidden piece of treasure that you wouldn’t have otherwise found, and then that treasure turns out to be some inscrutable thing, where you have no idea what the hell you just found?

Well, I looked up one such item in the DLC using a wiki. It turns out that creature I found earlier in the DLC that looked dead wasn’t actually dead. It wakes up if you go there with this item. So I ended the night not at any of the above places but at this church doing this fight. Holy cow, fighting giant enemies in this game is tough because of the camera. I didn’t even get him a quarter health down. But it was a good way to end for the night. At a completely optional boss fight. The funny part is, even if I beat him, I just instinctively know that my only reward (besides self-satisfaction, which should not be discounted) will be some other obscure item that I’ll have to look up in a wiki.

1729

He’s widely considered one of the toughest bosses. I think he was the worst for me, aside from OoK. That DLC is just brutal (not as bad as Ringed City, though). There are so many enormous bosses in Bloodborne, and the camera is just such garbage.

1730

So what do you guys think about fights against fellow Hunters in this game?

I’ve really enjoyed the fights this go around. It really feels like they did a good job in making these feel like fights against fellow people as opposed to fights against monsters. Instead of looking for patterns, it’s more of a peer to peer fight where you both have access to the same tools. You know you can both do long range melee attacks, ranged attacks, short range quick attacks, heavy attacks and super heavy attacks. Basically the fights go too quickly for anyone to really do super heavy attacks, so that’s out. But even my slowing 44-year-old brain is quick enough to pick up moments where I’m thinking “Oh shit, I’m committed, please don’t shotgun me right now”. You know the moments when you’re vulnerable to quick attacks and ranged attacks, and you know when they are vulnerable to them.

But at the same time, because you’re not looking for patterns anymore, these fights don’t feel like accomplishments of player skill anymore either. They’re fast and they’re fun, but there is an element of luck to them now. If they really wanted to, they could design a cheating AI that always counters your moves perfectly, but that would be idiotic, so they don’t do that. So it feels like the moves the AI picks are essentially random. And you can have these incredible fights where you’re brought down by some near perfect moves by the hunter, but you do the same fight again and the moves aren’t as perfect and you win. So victories don’t feel quite as satisfying as victories against traditional enemies for that reason.

But I’m still glad they have it in the game, because it really changes up the pace, and even though winning these fights is a matter of luck and inevitable, I still enjoy them.

1731

They’re pretty awesome. I think the BCoC is probably the toughest non-boss fight. That one guy with the rifle spear to the right of the cathedral gave me absolute fits the other day. They don’t seem to ever run out of bullets, which sucks I guess but at least they don’t heal (mostly)!

1732

Didn’t you get stuck on Lady Maria for 3 years last time? And now you’ve replayed the entire game and you’re here again?

I’m not sure I have the emotional strength to keep checking this thread.

1733

I got stuck on Living Failures for 3 years, and then Lady Maria, but it seemed so hard, I switched back to the regular game after that, and was stuck on the Nightmare of Mensis elevator shortcut area.

I confess I didn’t try Lady Maria all that much before giving up on it last time. Not like I kept trying Living Failures, because that seemed so easy.

I feel much more confident in my abilities this time. I think I can take Lady Maria. It just didn’t feel like I even had a chance last time once she starts spewing blood everywhere.

1734

For what it’s worth I found Lady Maria much more trying than the Living Failures, although neither of them were as bad as what comes after.

Mwahaha.

1735

I was saving this for when we were done, but I just want to thank you for arranging this Kolbex. This has been a blast. Maybe when I hit this super hard boss, if I can’t overcome it, maybe you’ll be caught up and we can do some jolly cooperation.

Or if I can’t get past Lady Maria, maybe you can help me with her.

Best Halloween themed October gaming since the October that I played Costume Quest.

1736

I mean all I did so far was say, “Hey who wants to play some Bloodborne in October,” but if that was the impetus you needed, then you’re welcome!

I will do my best to be available for any requested co-op, absolutely. Usually the only time I’m not available is M-F from about 8pm - 11pm eastern.

1737

With backlogs as huge as ours, any corralling done to play a particular game is impressive! :)

1738

I decided to start in the Nightmare Frontier tonight. I haven’t been here in a long, long time, since before I bought the Old Hunters DLC, so it will be fresh.

So far I’m very creeped out by the lack of player messages.

Either people stopped visiting this area because it’s optional, or they don’t leave messages. Or a server is down somewhere.

Edit: Oh shit, got invaded and killed as I was typing this post. Damn it.

1739

I didn’t even know you could be invaded without already having a summon in your world.

Edit: aha, only in the nightmare realms, apparently. One more reason to not go to that godforsaken place.

1740

Camped out in front of the Shadows of Yharnam, and I can see other people standing around belling, but I can’t get a summon or get summoned. Am I already over leveled??? I haven’t ground at all.

1741

ugh, The Witch of Hemwick. It looked so easy, until it was revealed that it the boss has (at least) 2 phases. The Phase-2-Witch paralized me and then I was clubbed to death.

I think i will try to help others in this fight as a summon and learn a bit more about the fight…

1742

You should get it next time newbrof. It’s not that tough when you know what to avoid and be careful of.

Last night I explored a lot of Nightmare Frontier’s poison rivers. Of course, I have no idea how much. It’s sooooo hard to visualize in my head where I’ve been and what the terrain looks like. In the end I ended up on an elevator that lead right back to the start of the area, so I took that as a victory. Tonight I can start exploring by going down that elevator.

Meanwhile, I took a few whacks at Lady Maria. Unfortunately I never got her below half. I am having a tough time once she starts sniping with blood. At least I’m learning how that works now, how the blood is thrown around. I wonder if playing this fight on the PS4 itself would help? Instead of playing remotely on my PC? Maybe the lower latency will help during the fight? I’m not sure. Probably not. My reflexes aren’t that fast anyway.

You know a boss fight in a Soulsborne game will be particularly bad when the bonfire/lamp is right next to the fight.

1743

After a while with Lady Maria, I just gave up on the notion of fumbling my way through, and didn’t even touch a blood vial until I could reliably get her to the third phase. She is eminently learnable though, and is almost a proto-Sekiro boss where you can really get into the beat of the combat.