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[Lion Heart]

Bloodborne is in my top 10 all time now but I agree weapon variety is the weakest aspect of the game.

I like pretty much every weapon so far but you don't get the range of stuff in souls and I miss that for sure.

I'm fine with the armor because it fits the game and you can't really have heavy armor with these mechanics, but I would have liked to see some more specialized weapons that benefit particular builds.

Honestly none of my weapons are beyond +5 because I can't make a decision on what I want to use. I was going to try blades of Mercy but I can't find Eileen. I've been most effective with Saw Cleaver and Axe but I lvld up SKL so I was hoping a SKL weapon would come along that works for me.

Hopefully a sequel can improve this because otherwise it's near perfect.

 

[WhiskerFrisker]

I used a claymore and uchigatana in Dark Souls 1+2. I used the Axe, Ludwig's sword, and the Blades of Mercy in my first play through. I didn't really see the need to try other weapons in Souls since I wasn't a magic/faith/hex user. So it's about on par for me.

 

[HORRORSHØW]

stake driver is life

 

[Mr. Nice_Guy]

There's 27 unique movesets among the Bloodborne weapons which is more or less in line with the first Dark Souls

Build variety is mediocre but that's more because weapon pacing is really bad. You get a bunch of cool STR stuff right off the bat but you have to play hours and hours to get cool Skill/Arcane weapons because most weapons are tied to fights you can only do at certain points of the game as opposed to being found in places you can run to. Having some of the Arcane tools at the beginning would've been cool.

This exactly, low level of early Skill weapons is unfortunate, and I hope that is fixed in whatever DLC they release. Same with arcane items.

 

[Aesnath]

This is one of the areas where Bloodborne let me down. I love the game, but compared with the latest Souls game (Dark Souls 2) the variety of weapons and play styles (dual wielding and different type of magic and more ) have been downgraded. Also, the weapons combos or move sets don't differ that much from previous Souls games, which made the combat become stale after hours of playing unlike Dark Souls 2. The Chalice dungeons (boring) and covenants (no rewards for leveling up unlike previous Souls games) are disappointing too.

Edit: Not enough armor sets too. In general, I think the game lacks content when compared with the DS1 and 2.

I like the game quite a bit, but I agree with a lot of this.

 

[Servbot24]

Huh? I'd say it's as long as DS/Demon's.

Took me about half the time as Dark.

 

[Ferrio]

stake driver is life

Stake driver is bad and you should feel bad! Only weapon I flat out hated after using it for awhile.

 

[joecanada]

Stake driver is bad and you should feel bad! Only weapon I flat out hated after using it for awhile.

stake driver beats all to a pulp...everything else is just a fence post.

 

[Hugstable]

Again, that's you're subjective play time. If you compare the objective story path+bosses excluding optional stuff, the games are quite comparable.

If we exclude optional stuff, couldn't Bloodborne be beaten super quick? Half the game is optional, while DS1 has a few optional areas, but not alot of it is actually that optional.

Honestly think you can probably finish off Bloodborne in like 15-20 hours if you understand the mechanics and only do main story stuff.

I used a claymore and uchigatana in Dark Souls 1+2. I used the Axe, Ludwig's sword, and the Blades of Mercy in my first play through. I didn't really see the need to try other weapons in Souls since I wasn't a magic/faith/hex user. So it's about on par for me.

You never used Clubs/Demon Mace?! Those weapons were so awesome in my DS1 and now DS2 playthrough, just straight up turn everything into pancakes

 

[joecanada]

I love Bloodborne but I'm playing the DS2 re-release now and really enjoying the absolutely massive amount of options available to build my character. On the other hand the trick weapon move sets look way more fluid than the power stance animations. They went for quality over having small variations on weapons but I miss the variety.

It also means that enemies can drop their armor sets, or a rare weapon that might be useful to you.

duel a fellow hunter for the right to wield their weapon or beat a boss and he drops the weapon out of his ass?

I'm okay either way.

 

[Coconut]

The lack of weapons and gear even if it wasn't really anything to write home about did kind of make the discovering aspects of bloodborne feel boring the fact that it's mostly upgrade material you find was pretty lame since by the time I was done with the game I had more than enough to upgrade most of my weapons to +9. Eventually I just sold it all since I'll find it all again in a new game. Finding gear will always be cooler.

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

I ended up using more weapons in Bloodborne than any Souls game. Each weapon is BB is more unique so I really wanted to try them all out. With DS I only ever stuck with one or two weapon types.

Same. I have so much more incentive to really experiment with the different types you find.

 

[Kazuhira]

Switching back and forth between BB and DS2 showed me how fun are bloodborne´s weapons.
I can´t stop using bolt paper on the threaded cane,it looks so sick.

 

[Holundrian]

They really need to rework gem balance, it's just not worth it to go anything but physical right now for min maxing.

 

[Guevara]

They really need to rework gem balance, it's just not worth it to go anything but physical right now for min maxing.

Yeah. Especially since bolt/fire paper become so cheap by the middle of the game.

 

[InfiniDragon]

weapon variety is very bad and hurts replayability.

Yep.

Still think it is a great game but they desperately need more build variety. Blood Gems also borked build variety as all scaling that isn't physical is worse apart from maybe Rapid Poison. Felt this would be an issue since we had the confirmed list of weapons, but some more vocal members of the "anti-anything Dark Souls II" crowd kept waving it away like "that game just has 9000 weapons that all fight the same".

DSII has a lot more movesets than BB with or without the clones, even without bringing up that you choose what weapons to dual wield in that unlike BB's more controlled weapon system.

 

[Coconut]

They really need to rework gem balance, it's just not worth it to go anything but physical right now for min maxing.

How much chalice dungeon have you done? There's some nutty gems in there.

 

[NastyBook]

The Kirhammer might have dethroned the Dragon Bone Smasher as my favorite ridiculous huge weapon in the Souls series. Walking around with a suitcase sized hammer on my back never gets old.

I forgot all about DBS. And I guess that would make Kirkhammer my favorite now as well. Just realized that I haven't set it on fire yet either.

 

[Steel]

Stake driver is bad and you should feel bad! Only weapon I flat out hated after using it for awhile.

Hated that I got that thing to +8 and still didn't like it. The swings are way too slow for such a short ranged weapon.

Also hated the threaded cane, I was originally planning to go a skill build, but since that and the rifle spear were the only skill weapons early on I ended up going strength.

 

[Alo0oy]

The Bloodgems allow you to turn Ludwig's Holy Blade into all 5 versions of great swords you found in previous games & even more.

Some of you need to do more chalice dungeons if you want variety, Bloodborne decided to give you variety in a different way, it gave you far less weapons, but every single weapon is unique, & they put three gem slots to customize that weapon, with gemstones each weapon would give you more variety than any weapon class in the previous games.

Arcane was basically Miyazaki's way of addressing the complaints of magic = easy mode, he nerfed the spells, but gave arcane builds a lot of options (far more than any other build), you can do scaling elemental damage, you can do magic, & a lot of items scale with your stats as well as a very high item drop rate. In turn, Arcane builds were more "strategic" since different enemies have different elemental weaknesses.

The depth in Bloodborne appears very late in the game, it wasn't made to give you all the options right away, all the cool stuff is very late in the game or hidden in the chalice dungeons.

 

[gelf]

I'm a less is more type when it comes to this kind of thing. A small number of more versatile weapons is preferable to loads that I'll never use. I don't change weapons much in Souls anyway as I don't want to have to farm upgrades too many times.

It probably sucks for people who like the loot and upgrade aspect of Souls but I don't play the games for that.

 

[Majmun]

The weapons in BB are fucking awesome though. The kirkhammer, threaded cane and stakedriver have some pretty amazing moves. The threaded cane looks amazing in motion. You don't see anything like that in the other Souls games.

I'd rather have 10 unique weapons that are all useful instead of thirty basic weapons that feel the same.

I miss bows, though.

 

[Hugstable]

The Bloodgems allow you to turn Ludwig's Holy Blade into all 5 versions of great swords you found in previous games & even more.

Some of you need to do more chalice dungeons if you want variety, Bloodborne decided to give you variety in a different way, it gave you far less weapons, but every single weapon is unique, & they put three gem slots to customize that weapon, with gemstones each weapon would give you more variety than any weapon class in the previous games.

Arcane was basically Miyazaki's way of addressing the complaints of magic = easy mode, he nerfed the spells, but gave arcane builds a lot of options (far more than any other build), you can do scaling elemental damage, you can do magic, & a lot of items scale with your stats as well as a very high item drop rate.

The depth in Bloodborne appears very late in the game, it wasn't made to give you all the options right away, all the cool stuff is very late in the game or hidden in the chalice dungeons.

Chalice dungeons aren't very fun though, they should have had that stuff in the main game if anything, you shouldn't have to wait all the way until Chalice dungeons to get supposed cool stuff, they should have packed that stuff into the game, especially considering that there isn't that much good loot in the first place throughout the world.

I'm really hoping that if the game does get DLC, we get some real locations with great level design instead of more Chalice Dungeon stuff.

 

[Arttemis]

It took me about 25 whereas DS1 was 50 for me. I also found the game to be the easiest in the series and I was only ever really stuck on Vicar Amelia and Ebrietas - who is optional.

These comparisons are such loaded topics. It took me 120 hours to beat Dark Souls the first time, and about 60 in Bloodborne.

But, I came into BB knowing far more about the game's mechanics due to the time I spent in DS. Mastering one Souls game immediately makes all the others easier and faster.

 

[Alo0oy]

Chalice dungeons aren't very fun though, they should have had that stuff in the main game if anything, you shouldn't have to wait all the way until Chalice dungeons to get supposed cool stuff, they should have packed that stuff into the game, especially considering that there isn't that much good loot in the first place throughout the world.

I'm really hoping that if the game does get DLC, we get some real locations with great level design instead of more Chalice Dungeon stuff.

I found the Chalice Dungeons really fun & engaging, the areas are a bit samey from a visual standpoint, but as far as gameplay goes, the chalice dungeons are where the series has hit its peak, they're extremely challenging & offer a lot of unique combat scenarios not found in the previous games (like fighting 3 uber enemies surrounded by an army of lesser enemies).

 

[Raonak]

I enjoyed the weapons a lot more here, every weapon felt unique and more like DMC, than an RPG. You're using the weapons for their movesets rather than stats.
I actually wish the game had a weapon wheel so I could cycle through weapons. Cause they're all really fun to play.


To me, the RPG mechanics in souls felt very "filler". The game is more of an character-action game to me. (Bloodborne especially, I feel a lot of my DMC skills transfer well)
I'm actively avoiding levelling up my main stats so I don't become overpowered. Demons stopped becoming as fun when i overlevelled.

I'd actually be very interested in a souls game that just removed all the RPG mechanics, and focused solely on the skill based combat.

 

[Imperfected]

Most of the "lost" content from DS and DS2 in particular are noob-traps or "non-choices". If you've got five extremely similar shortswords in the game and one of them is just better than the others, as far as most players are concerned you've actually got one shortsword in your game, not five.

Bloodborne basically says, "Pick the type of weapon you want to use" and whatever type you pick, you get the best version. Dark Souls says, "Pick the type of weapon you want to use. Now go find the best version of it; hopefully you can find a speedrun guide to get to it, because otherwise you're going to be using this rubbish version until you get to it."

To say nothing for the extreme newbie traps, like the fact that Scholar of the First Sin's durability bug makes it so half the weapons may as well not exist. There's no point in using anything with lower durability since you're barely going to get through a pack of mobs before it's ready to break. This is especially hilarious considering how many of these weapons get front-loaded in the first areas.

 

[antennaehead]

I'm more or less fine with BB's weapon variety. I wouldn't say that it's better than Dark Souls 1, though.

Biggest problems in my opinion are a) upgrade system - too simple and straightforward as already been mentioned.
And b) Bloodgems. With the exception of the very build-specific arcane/elemental gems, you will only care about +Attack gems. And they are RNG drops on top of that.

 

[Alo0oy]

I'm more or less fine with BB's weapon variety. I wouldn't say that it's better than Dark Souls 1, though.

Biggest problems in my opinion are a) upgrade system - too simple and straightforward as already been mentioned.
And b) Bloodgems. With the exception of the very build-specific arcane/elemental gems, you will only care about +Attack gems. And they are RNG drops on top of that.

This post makes no sense (no offense), the bloodgems are there because the upgrades are straight forward.

On the second point, there's a bloodgem for every single mechanic in the game, it's impossible to add any more variety to them.

 

[Enordash]

So I just finished Bloodborne and stepped back to DS2. Currently I'm leaning toward Bloodborne as having the superior formula, but this may be because I feel DS2 has too many choices so I often feel conflicted about what I want to use. I also really enjoyed the transforming weapons. The BB weapons all felt really cool and desirable to get to know.

 

[antennaehead]

This post makes no sense (no offense), the bloodgems are there because the upgrades are straight forward.

On the second point, there's a bloodgem for every single mechanic in the game, it's impossible to add any more variety to them.

My point is - yes, gems were supposed to fix the simplicity of +1 to +10 upgrades. But there are no variety in gems either. There are some interesting gems (like health regen or poison for example), but they are - from my experience at least - extremely undertuned (both provide very minuscule effect) - and the only gems that are worth using are the ones that adds more attack. Which, in the end, results in - again - very straightforward upgrade system.

 

[Sullichin]

duel a fellow hunter for the right to wield their weapon or beat a boss and he drops the weapon out of his ass?

I'm okay either way.

You can't deny Souls has more loot though! A boss might drop a weapon from destroying its tail, which takes deliberate action on the player's part during the boss fight. It probably wasn't until my third or fourth time through DS that I got Seath's Moonlight Greatsword.

Not just that, but enemies used to drop armor sets, and some rare fun weapons like the Balder Straight Sword or Titanite Catch Pole. Regardless of the method of acquisition, the result was that when you fought or helped other players, they will likely look and play much differently than you. In Bloodborne it's common to be summoned to someone's world and be using the exact same armor and weapons as them. If this happened in Dark Souls you're doing a gesture dance party for 5 minutes cause you can't believe it.

 

[Jobbs]

I've heard varying reactions to this, but the streamlined gear and builds in Bloodborne, in my opinion, drastically damage the experience. Beating a tough boss or exploring a new dungeon rarely results in any interesting or fun finds because there's no armor, no shields, no magic or miracle system (outside of a small handful of arcane usables) and very few weapons.

Most the time, you do something difficult and are rewarded with it's fucking nothing. I actually grinded it out pretty far in the chalice dungeons before just giving up -- the lack of any rewards of any kind for the huge amount of effort I was putting in caused me to lose motivation.

In other souls games, I imagined, even before my first playthrough was done, what kind of alt I'd like to make, and often make an alt before even finishing my playthrough -- Because I was excited to try new character concepts, try new things. In Bloodborne, that feeling barely exists because all characters are basically the same.

The character creation and all "classes" having the same starting gear is emblematic of the experience at large. Simplified and streamlined.

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

Each weapon in right-handed Bloodborne should really count as two weapons.

 

[Hugstable]

To say nothing for the extreme newbie traps, like the fact that Scholar of the First Sin's durability bug makes it so half the weapons may as well not exist. There's no point in using anything with lower durability since you're barely going to get through a pack of mobs before it's ready to break. This is especially hilarious considering how many of these weapons get front-loaded in the first areas.

DS2 scholar gives you tons of regular durability weapons right at the start as well. Most are smart enough to not use the "broken" name weapons with low durability. Plus the equipemnt load system in it is very much balanced towards you always having 2 or 3 weapons equipped. The durability bug is very much overblown.

 

[Sullichin]

Each weapon in right-handed Bloodborne should really count as two weapons.

Each Dark Souls 2 weapon had one hand, two hand, and power stance move sets. All weapons change move sets slightly when used in your left hand too, and I can think of one weapon that has a totally unique move set while left handed.

Some of the move sets are shared / partially shared, but there are definitely far more "moves" overall. It's not even a question.

 

[Vena]

BB's weapons and sense of reward are honestly crippled and poor compared to the Souls games. After a boss in the Souls series you had an item that w/could become a weapon or unique spell, it was something to look forward to, something new to make after every brutal encounter, something new to try and swing around for a while and maybe play with instead. (It is also helped that while weapons repeat in terms of type, there were usually unique movesets or varied movesets to the boss weapons. Dark Souls 2, every weapon brought in the single, power, and two handed movesets. That's a ton of variety pissed away.)

What do I get in BB for beating a boss? Effectively jack shit.

 

[Struct09]

I feel that Bloodborne has more memorable weapons than the previous games, but can see why people would be disappointed that there aren't as many upgrade paths.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Not to mention if you're gonna tie their usage to bullets then give people ways to increase bullet count without having to rely on runes

Blood bullets?

 

[Hugstable]

BB's weapons and sense of reward are honestly crippled and poor compared to the Souls games. After a boss in the Souls series you had an item that w/could become a weapon or unique spell, it was something to look forward to, something new to make after every brutal encounter, something new to try and swing around for a while and maybe play with instead. (It is also helped that while weapons repeat in terms of type, there were usually unique movesets or varied movesets to the boss weapons. Dark Souls 2, every weapon brought in the single, power, and two handed movesets. That's a ton of variety pissed away.)

What do I get in BB for beating a boss? Effectively jack shit.

While it sucks a bit that the boss souls are gone, they would have really needed to make the rewards for them better cause they didn't really matter that much in previous games. Most I know just used them as regular souls that you pick up to increase your soul count since the weapons you got from them through trade were usually inferior to everything you had gotten up to that point. Unless you are doing it for fashion souls reasons and want those bad ass looking boss weapons. The spells that you could trade them for were really cool though.

 

[Raiden]

Lack of improved clothing sets annoyed me more. Im still using the Yarnham hunter set. But atleast it looks cool.

 

[Jaeger]

How many useless weapons were in DS2? My box was filled with useless weapons. Maybe well over a hundred. I used maybe 15 at all times, that I carried on me. Most of the weapons were purely duplicates of one another, with the exact same moves with minor or non-existent stat and cosmetic differences.

Bloodborne did weapons right. I'd rather have 15 unique and well designed weapons (with a few variants), instead of the 200+ weapons ion DS2, were less than half are unique and fun to use. I think there's 220 something total, counting DLC weapons.

 

[Vena]

While it sucks a bit that the boss souls are gone, they would have really needed to make the rewards for them better cause they didn't really matter that much in previous games. Most I know just used them as regular souls that you pick up to increase your soul count since the weapons you got from them through trade were usually inferior to everything you had gotten up to that point. Unless you are doing it for fashion souls reasons and want those bad ass looking boss weapons. The spells that you could trade them for were really cool though.

Depends on the boss. Queelaag's Fury Sword is a damned good weapon.

 

[CLEEK]

Bloodborne is just way more focused than Souls.

Fewer but better weapons.
Shorter play time but fewer bad areas,
Less build variety but arguably better gameplay (very debatable i'm sure).

And so on.

Yes, it's very much a case of less is more.

But I guess that's subjective on whether you played Souls games to get very specific builds and equipment, or played it to just complete the game.

In all three Souls games, I would have seen out the initial play through with 3-4 weapons. Changing weapons when new, more powerful ones became available and never going back to the old ones. The rarity of the higher end upgrade stones meant you could only really invest in maxing out a single weapon during the first play through.

What I really like about the weapons in BB is they are all comparable to each other off the bat. You end up sticking with the weapon(s) that suit your play style. There don't seem to be any bad choices.

As opposed to Souls, where there are a load of minor variants of each type, but with clear best performers that make the other variants pointless.

 

[ElFly]

I find hard to compare game length between these games.

Clearly demon is the shortest and Scholar is the longest.

But between DS1, Vanilla DS2 and BB? god knows. I spent a ton more of time wandering around Yharnam to find where to go, than Lordran or Drangleic, but I also had way less trouble with the bosses in BB, with only Ebrietas giving me a hard time, and only Unseen Villages and the first part of the Nightmare of Mensis as hard areas to go through, while I feel that there more areas I'd call hard in either Dark game.

 

[super-famicom]

Threaded Cane is life

FTFY

 

[Shredderi]

Lack of improved clothing sets annoyed me more. Im still using the Yarnham hunter set. But atleast it looks cool.

This. Almost done finished it and still rocking the first set I found in the game. C'mon! Having finished Dark Souls two days ago for the first time, I can really appreciate the things I feel it did better than Bloodborne.

 

[Ferrio]

Lack of improved clothing sets annoyed me more. Im still using the Yarnham hunter set. But atleast it looks cool.

This. Almost done finished it and still rocking the first set I found in the game. C'mon! Having finished Dark Souls two days ago for the first time, I can really appreciate the things I feel it did better than Bloodborne.

I liked the clothing. There is no clear cut winners, there's never anything you throw away (except the first armor) because it's clearly inferior. All the armor has varying stats for different situations.

If you'd of had clear cut winners everyone would of worn the same damn thing.

 

[Shredderi]

I liked the clothing. There is no clear cut winners, there's never anything you throw away (except the first armor) because it's clearly inferior. All the armor has varying stats for different situations.

If you'd of had clear cut winners everyone would of worn the same damn thing.

I get that. I mean, you're right, but I really missed that sense of progression and exploration being rewarding.

 

[Silent Chief]

I think they should have put more new weapons at the start of the game so new players can try things out and find what they want to use instead of being stuck with the starter they picked with no experience with the combat for 10 hours.

That might have been just more confusing.

I started with the saw cleaver and was pretty disappointed when I tried the saw spear... I was expecting a 2-handed spear mode.