Support NeoGAF

[Dmonzy]

Your problem is you're about 20 levels too high for where you are in the game. Anybody would have little difficulty if they grinded that much.

Some of the bosses in the game I've felt are much easier, but others (especially some of the chalice bosses) definitely push me to my limits. I can't really compare too much to the previous souls games because I was a shield user then so it's an entirely new approach for me.

 

[Soulflarz]

As always, your difficulty through these games has almost everything to do with how quickly you can acclimate to certain boss styles and how well you jive with your equipment.

.

Like uh.
Yeah. Saw for a decent bit.
Ludwigs sword basically from the moment I got it.

Those r2 charge attacks became a win button for me, kinda didnt like it.

 

[Karsticles]

Dark Souls was Zzzz compared to this. Block for hours and attack whenever you feel like it.

Demon's Souls was the first, and a new kind of experience, so it is hard to gauge the comparative difficulty.

 

[BY2K]

I've still got about 9 bosses left but am already level 60.

Pretty sure you're overleveled.

 

[Bugs Bunny]

It's super eaay. Makes DS2 seem like DeS on NG+++ with pure black world tendencies.

 

[Interficium]

Pretty sure you're overleveled.

No, no, no.

It's just that his reflexes have been trained to a ridiculous degree.

 

[Neoweee]

Bloodborne's balance is really odd. Birds and dogs killed me more times in the first playthrough than all bosses combined. I don't even know what I a lot of bosses are supposed to do. Making healing scale with vitality was a really poor decision, IMO, as it led to Vitality being the best it has ever been. Healing after you've stacked some Vit is just so overpowered to the point where I didn't really have to learn the movesets for a bunch of bosses. There's also no real penalty for running out of Stamina, so just stacking Vit & Strength ends up being a hell of a build, hard to go wrong.

I don't know if it easier, overall, but it is easier to figure out the "best" strategy just due to the relative lack of options.

 

[Hypron]

It's super eaay. Makes DS2 seem like DeS on NG+++ with pure black world tendencies.

DS2 is harder than DeS though...

 

[Netrunner2k2]

I've found it easier also. The ways you heal have made it far less punishing than other games in the "series."

 

[vilmer_]

For me it wasn't nearly as difficult as Demon's and Dark. And this is coming from a sword and board guy. It took me a good month to beat both of those games and I whipped through Bloodborne in less than a week. The most challenging part in the entire game for me were the 3 hunters :/

 

[RangerBAD]

I'm still early on (just reached Old Yarnham), but that's the vibe I've got as well.

It's all about patience, timing and not getting ahead of yourself.

Which is the rule of thumb for all Souls games.

 

[bananafactory]

Pretty sure you're overleveled.

How far is he if he has 9 bosses left?

I have beat

C

Spoiler

leric Beast

F

Spoiler

ather G

B

Spoiler

lood Starved Beast

V

Spoiler

icar Amelia

W

Spoiler

itch of Hemwick

S

Spoiler

hadow of Yharnam

D

Spoiler

arkbeast Paarl

R

Spoiler

om the Vacuous Spider

And I'm level 55. No idea how many bosses I have left to fight

 

[X-Factor]

Here is an easy way to accumulate echos, stock up on health potions, and other supplies near the start of the game.


You can use it to buy the Hunter's attire set from the messengers near the Doll in Hunter's Dream and to gain some levels easily earlier
in the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=394ijtwu1z4

 

[Manu]

I'd say it's about on par, but at the same time I've solo'd every boss so far while I had to coop some of the bosses in the other games.

 

[OniBarubary]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Fucking no.

I've beaten DS 5 times. Most I ever fought against a boss was 11 times for Ornstein and Smough.

Two bosses in this game had me sitting at 38 and 43 tries respectively. Most took me over 10.

 

[Soriku]

I think the bosses are harder since alot of them have a bunch of one hit or two hit kills. The enemies are probably easier.

No boss has been able to one shot me outside of one or maybe two. That said, when you have 20 vials, you're allowed to take more hits. Just make sure you back up first before healing.

Why? This doesn't make any sense to me. There's no way it's way easier than Demon's Souls.

It's definitely easier than Demon's. I don't recall having as much trouble in Bloodborne than I've had with 4-1 in Demon's.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Fucking no.

I've beaten DS 5 times. Most I ever fought against a boss was 11 times for Ornstein and Smough.

Two bosses in this game had me sitting at 38 and 43 tries respectively. Most took me over 10.

Which bosses have taken you that long? What weapon are you using?

 

[shandy706]

Fell asleep and beat 2 bosses.

Spoiler

yeah, not really

 

[Orayn]

People have had a pretty wide variety of experiences with it. For me personally, the changes were enough that I wound up getting my ass kicked as if I'd barely played the series before.

 

[Kalnos]

nvm

 

[Pestilence11]

If you don't over-level, the difficulty is very much in line with the others in the series. I'm 4 bosses in and only level 22.

 

[thelastcrusader]

You're so cool OP.

I'll never understand the weird e-peen stuff people get with Souls games.

You're even cooler than me completely derailing a topic instead of actually contributing something useful.
Btw I'm only overleveled because I'm killing every single thing I see and picking up a ton of blood items. I think I've only lost my blood echoes once? Besides that I always retrieve them.

 

[Wishmaster92]

Not bragging

 

[Santiako]

I found it easier than the previous games, yes.

 

[Beats]

Having played the three previous games I thought it was easy. I never felt like any of the other games were that hard though, but this one felt the easiest for me. I pretty much breezed through the areas and normal enemies. Only a few bosses gave me a tough time. Being able to parry some boss attacks and taking hits while regaining a lot of your health and dealing lots of damage with R2 charge attacks made many encounters pretty easy.

I played melee with a shield and bow in the previous games, but the dodge is really good here so I never felt like I needed a shield.

 

[DannyDanger]

Getting past the first area was a titanic struggle for me.

Me too. And I've played every Souls games.

But I turtled so no shield essentially makes me a rookie

 

[Bugs Bunny]

DS2 is harder than DeS though...

I've beaten DS2 three times with no deaths on NG & once on NG+. I've never done that in DeS(excluding the must die). Eitherway, Bloodborne is the shortest & easiest Souls game. I think there are

Spoiler

8

bosses required to beat the game, that's it. Every other boss is optional & most are part of those uninspired chalice dungeons.

 

[Spirit of Jazz]

I never really found that "Capra Demon" encounter that I stayed stuck on for hours in Bloodborne - most bosses died in two or three attempts.

I never died to Capra Demon whilst Ebrietas has stole my soul. "Difficulty" in DS games can depend so much on build, level, and what the player's good at that it's always tricky to compare them.

 

[Guevara]

I'm at endgame at level 70, I don't know if that's high or low. I'm actually grinding a bit to finish the game, start NG+ at more like level 100.

 

[Jathaine]

I think people's experiences will differ greatly with Bloodborne since you get a notable defense increase with every level.
In previous games, defense was either tied to a specific stat (or multiple stats but not all of them) and/or didn't make much of a difference.

Same with damage dealt, actually. I feel like damage scaling is more of a thing in BB than in Souls games. When you put in a few points of STR you really notice it even in the early levels whereas in the Souls games the actual weapon upgrade was far more important until you'd significantly upgraded a weapon and boosted its scaling considerably.

tl;dr: Level matters a lot now so the playerbase doesn't get the relatively similar experience they used to get with previous games where your level didn't matter as much.

 

[Ivory Samoan]

It's pretty easy compared to Dark Souls 1

I had some trouble at first but now I breeze through everything except god damn frenzy bastards

Frenzy... oh how I hate Frenzy.

 

[McHuj]

No.

I found Dark Souls extremely difficult but once I learned the game, it was manageable so Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne seem normal in their expected difficulty.

The experience with the Souls series definitely helps so I think for from's next RPG I hope they mix it up some.

 

[LouisaFerre]

it was still hard for me, since up until the last 1/5th of the game I only had my vitality at 9.

I saw that they were trying to put more of a focus on dodging and parrying over absorbing/blocking attacks pretty early on, so I held off on upgrading vitality since I felt it kind of went against the whole thing they were going for.

 

[Interficium]

Btw I'm only overleveled because I'm killing every single thing I see and picking up a ton of blood items.

Nah. What's actually going on is that you're overleveled from going over the same areas grinding echoes again and again, but are chalking it up to your sweet skills and "ridiculously honed reflexes."

As was already pointed out earlier, you should be at or very near end-game at your level.

Don't blame me for thread backfire, dude.

 

[Stereogatari]

Which is the rule of thumb for all Souls games.

So all this "OMG SO HARD" talk are just noobs and casuals that need to git gud?

 

[thelastcrusader]

How far is he if he has 9 bosses left?

I have beat

C

Spoiler

leric Beast

F

Spoiler

ather G

B

Spoiler

lood Starved Beast

V

Spoiler

icar Amelia

W

Spoiler

itch of Hemwick

S

Spoiler

hadow of Yharnam

D

Spoiler

arkbeast Paarl

R

Spoiler

om the Vacuous Spider

And I'm level 55. No idea how many bosses I have left to fight

I've beaten all of those except the last one. Just running through the woods with a few deaths, by the time I got to the end of it I had 100k echoes to spend by the time I got to the boss. Getting echoes is easy as hell in this game so I don't know how I'm overleveled and just got the rune to get more echoes.

 

[John Bender]

Nope about the same for me.

Yep!
About the same for me.

 

[skLaFarebear]

Obviously not as tough as my first run through a souls game (DS1), but compared to my first "experienced" run through DS1 and my first runs through DS2 and DeS, BB has been the hardest by far.

 

[Stillmatic]

Died as much as any other Souls game. DS2 though I'd died far less in the same amount of time spent in Bloodborne (still on my first play through).

 

[Auctopus]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Fucking no.

I've beaten DS 5 times. Most I ever fought against a boss was 11 times for Ornstein and Smough.

Two bosses in this game had me sitting at 38 and 43 tries respectively. Most took me over 10.

What. Which bosses had you stuck at 38 and 43 attempts? You must've been underleveled. If you can solo O&S, you can handle Bloodborne, surely.

 

[papercan55]

I don't like it either. I hate when people ask online whether the Souls games are worth trying and the elitists rise to the top with answers like "Ooh, I don't know. It's pretty hard."

It just sells the game short.

This x1000!!!

It's my first ever souls game, i was put off a little by the the fans telling me it's so hard and i will die all the time..

I've finished bloodborne and don't see why people would say this to others, the bosses are tough but i would never say it's too hard or expect to die all the time.
All it takes is patience and some skill, once you've learnt not to rush fights it's really not as hard as the elitists make it out to be. Fans of the series really need to be more welcoming and not regard the series as some sort of special club for the best gamers because it isn't.

 

[VinFTW]

Doesnt feel like a souls game in terms of difficulty. In terms of everything else? Hell yeah.

Doesn't mean it's a bad game, one of the best Souls games. Just super easy by souls standards, and only somewhat difficult by casual standards.

 

[Deleted member 30609]

as with all the Souls games, you can over-level and trivialize much of the challenge

 

[Hypron]

It's definitely easier than Demon's. I don't recall having as much trouble in Bloodborne than I've had with 4-1 in Demon's.

That's probably because you played DeS first I reckon. It's the easiest game in the series by far imo. Almost all the bosses are really simple mechanically, you just have to figure out their 1 trick and they become super simple. Apart from Allant and Flamelurker I guess, but those aren't hard either if you're properly levelled up. You also have access to a near unlimited number of healing items which makes it possible to heal through anything, spells are completely broken (both offensive and defensive ones - eg. second chance). The AI is the worst in the series which helps you even further...

 

[-MD-]

So all this "OMG SO HARD" talk are just noobs and casuals that need to git gud?

Yeah.

 

[Vire]

Not all of us can have our reflexes trained to a ridiculous level.

smfh op.

 

[Stone Ocean]

Eh, some parts can be pretty hard since enemy numbers can overwhelm you. Out of all the bosses I fought so far, I only one shotted two

Unless you're a axe-wielding casul, that is

 

[Resilient]

Yes, way too easy compared to the Souls games. Every boss past Vicar Amelia is just not a challenge.

 

[Dennis]

hold up

 

[Soriku]

People have had a pretty wide variety of experiences with it. For me personally, the changes were enough that I wound up getting my ass kicked as if I'd barely played the series before.

Just curious, which changes really screwed you up? I've already detailed why I don't think having a shield is a big deal. In addition, for me the extra speed lends more to my playstyle and helps me dispatch enemies with more easy. I don't think the enemies got a lot faster. It also helps that dodging and regular attacks do little stamina. It's great how I can do like 9 straight hits with my sword at like 23-24 endurance (+runes). Charge attacks still take a lot of stamina though, but you always have some left over to dodge back a few times if you need to.

 

[RK9039]

The only boss that gave me any trouble was Gascoigne because it was really early in the game, the rest I killed in the first or second attempt including the fights where there was more than one boss.

I just started a low level character, Waste of Skin, I'm going to try not to level up.