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Soulslike - Discussion, News, Memes

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This is a community for discussion, news, and memes pertaining to the video game sub-genre "soulslike".

Given Lemmy's size, the definition of soulslike may be treated relatively loosely. While games like the numerous FromSoft titles, the recent Star Wars Jedi games, Lies of P, Nioh and similar games should be the focus, games that incorporate soulslike elements - like Hollow Knight and Blasphemous, for example - may also be discussed here.

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[Discussion] Which Soulslike will you be playing this weekend and what would you like a potential second DLC for Elden Ring to be about? (infosec.pub)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by v4ld1z@lemmy.zip to c/soulslike@lemmy.zip
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I'm back to playing League, Hunt Showdown, and Slay the Spire 2 - no soulslikes on my plate right now.

Shadow of the Erdtree was undoubtedly a huge success and it added a lot to the game that fans desired. New mechanics were added, a more dark and mysterious vibe came to be, and a lot of new bosses entered the pantheon of best soulslike bosses. Given the DLC's success, coming with another DLC for the game would probably be received quite well by fans.

What would you like such a DLC to look like? What locations and bits of lore are left unexplored? Characters you could imagine showing up (again)?

Let me know!

Shoutouts to @Skua@kbin.earth for the discussion suggestion! 💜 :)

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[–] MissingInteger@lemmy.zip 4 points 13 hours ago

The classic answer to this is Godwyn. There is quite a lot of room in his story. While he kinda has his related ending in the Duskborn Ending, he is still a pretty mysterious figure. You could go the classic time travel route and go to the Night of Black Knives or to just after at the beginning of the Shattering. But such a setting wouldn’t lend itself to an open world, at least in my mind, since you would either be confined or just retread the Lands Between.

I would be interested in a DLC focused on the Outer Gods. Mainly on the Mother of the Gravebirds and the Mother of Truth (Blood-goddess worshipped by Mogh and the Bloodfiends). The Mother of the Gravebirds is probably a Bird like creature because of her children and her envoys who are twin-birds; I imagine her as a giant Phoenix - Fromsoft didn’t have any phoenices yet, right? I could also see a focus on the elements of the outer gods. Only Rot has ever been clearly stated as an element, but maybe also frenzy, verdigris, and blood(?). Also maybe a bit more insight in to the life cycle of gods since they can apparently die like the Lake of Rot, which is just the corpse of a Outer God, or the tomb under the capital, where the three fingers are. We could even find out in this hypothetical DLC the fate of Placidusax’s god (the vessel of the Elden Ring during his Order). Many plot-hooks you can combine in this Stories of the Outer Gods.

I beat the final Boss of the Lies of P DLC. Very cinematic fight. Very fun DLC overall. I usually don’t enjoy tag team fights that much, but this was very enjoyable. Also some really nice voice lines.

I will carve dread into your eyes that will haunt you forever!

This was probably my favorite mid-battle line. Very nice voice acting by Lea’s voice actor.

This weekend I’m probably going to be using the rematch feature to battle the Overseer and Markiona again, since I easily trounced them earlier.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 8 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

If they did a second DLC for Elden Ring (aside from what will probably come with the Tarnished Edition) I would hope they add in more MP-centric stuff like they had in DS3. Not the grind, but the factions and stuff like Halflight or Belltower/Mirror Knight. Maybe make it a max of 6 players again.

[–] YewEyeOwe31@lemmy.world 5 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

Exactly this is what I feel like Elden Ring has been missing from the start: factions with rewards to encourage multiplayer engagement. I even miss Aldrich invasions and being a mound maker. Half the invaders in Elden Ring play like mound makers anyways and attack everything indiscriminately... may as well get some shackles for it.

That and the removal of the ember/humanity requirement made it less likely that people would be exposed to invasions. I remember beating bosses, forgetting I was ember-ed, and run into an invader at the worst/best possible moment. I know that some people hated being forced into PVP, but it got the blood flowing and made every play-through feel just a little unique. It added character to the world, made it feel alive.

Edit: What would some interesting factions be for Elden ring that would be lore friendly? I like the idea of maybe a SOTE invasion class being fire knights. In hindsight they could have locked some of the spells and weapon arts behind this instead of the NPC invaders. The bloody fingers and recusant fingers were clearly based on some of the invasion factions in previous games, would have been cool to see at least one of those have rewards based on invasion success/spoils. Golden order would seem to be the closest analogue to the Warriors of Sunlight, and has a handful of relevant spells and weapons that could have been chases. Maybe a faction for Those Who Live in Death that could have been like the Gravelord Servents or something?

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

It would be quite fun to take the "help other players with bosses" covenants in a different direction, I think. Many of the bosses you'd be summoned for are representatives of the Golden Order in one way or another. If we can become Godskins or Black Knives, they've already got track records of going after the big figures of the Order

[–] YewEyeOwe31@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago

I really like that line of thought.

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 2 points 21 hours ago

That's getting pretty close to Nightreign in some ways, I suppose! But yeah, something akin to Dark Souls covenents would be fun. We were almost there and just didn't quite get them in the end

[–] sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz 8 points 22 hours ago

I'm trying to start a new DS2 run. Haven't ever beat SotFS version before so might as well see what all that's about.

I'm pretty fucked up there wasn't an expansion on what the heck was going on with Godwyn's corpse. I know it has its own ending but with all the foreshadowing in the game you can't just leave the rest of all that offscreen.

[–] eezeebee@lemmy.ca 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Just about to finish Demon Tides, and then I'm not sure what I'm playing next. Interestingly I found an interview with the devs that confirmed my suspicion that they were in fact influenced by Elden Ring! Very cool for a 3D platformer.

Good question about DLCs. Maybe something way back in the past to further explore/illustrate the lore that GRRM wrote. Or, I'd be interested to see what becomes of things after the Ranni ending. Maybe she goes full baddie and is the final boss?

[–] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 3 points 18 hours ago

That would be an interesting idea. However, I'm not too sure how FS would handle deciding that one ending is officially a canon ending then. Maybe an alternate universe similarly to SotE's world? Though I could imagine that being too repetitive maybe?

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Probably no soulslikes for me this weekend, as I'm busy all of Sunday with family and got some sim racing with friends booked in for Saturday. I'm not going to complain about having socialising to do instead, though!

Okay I wrote more than I meant to here and have hit the comment character limit for the first time, so I guess I'm putting this in a couple of posts

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

The setup and reasoningI liked SotE a lot (and was okay with the final boss, even), but I do agree with criticisms of how disconnected it felt from the base game. I don't want to involve Godwyn because his role as soul-dead is, in my opinion, too important to other major stories in the game. If we examine the base game, Miquella was indeed left with an unresolved and unexplored story, so I think following him to some degree or another was the right call for SotE. I think we need someone or something of similar power and influence to root a DLC-sized story in. Other major figures that are left in a similar position post-SotE are the Gloam-Eyed Queen and arguably Melina, We've also got some Outer Gods that remain fairly unexplored, particularly the Twinbird's Outer God.

I think one of the other things I and many others would like most is more differentation between the different Elden Lord endings (that is, every ending except the Frenzied Flame's and Ranni's), so I think I'd like to do something that triggers after you get a base game Elden Lord ending. Also it'd be funny to see the internet get angry at missing out on a DLC if they marry their blue waifu.

I have a pet theory that each of Marika's children barring Godwyn was created as a seal upon something that threatened her. Messmer is a cage for the Abyssal Serpent, for example. I'm going to roll with this and the Twinbird's influence return upon the death of Melina. Her association with death is the connection here, her being the seal upon the Twinbird. In my opinion, she is in some way a form, piece, or child of the Gloam-Eyed Queen reshaped by Marika, hence her being a child of Marika but somehow unsure about how motherhood works. This origin made her a suitable seal upon the god of death.

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

The storySo you get your Elden Lord ending of choice, but as the scene pans out to show the Erdtree burnt but no longer aflame, a new fire descends upon it - torrents of ghostflame reaching out to the horizon, forming four wings. The Erdtree's branches crack and warp, shifting to resemble Helphen's Steeple. The envoy of the real god of death is back, unbound for the first time since the beginning of the Golden Order.

With the return of the death god, the Forbidden Lands return to their proper form. The grace-like red light over that narrow isthmus reaching from Leyndell to the Mountaintops flares and then erupts, spilling out at last after an age of containment, and an entire region spills out to fill that chasm. It's an area full of crashing rivers and turbulent pools descending down terraces, fed by the underground rivers and meltwater from the mountains. At the very bottom of it, you can now walk directly to the Land of Shadow without using Miquella's cocoon. These waters are the way by which death once flowed to the Land of Shadow. There would need to be something stopping you from doing this before you gain normal access to SotE, but I'm not sure what.

The Twinbird isn't actually too bothered about the upheaval of the Golden Order specifically. It's more opposed to the spread of deathroot, a corruption of true death. Unfortunately for you, your new throne is directly over the source of the deathroot and if you picked Fia's ending then you're doubly in for it.

The story requires you to either find a weapon that can put an end to the Outer God's anger by properly putting Godwyn down, or to drive the Twinbird off. For the former, we're going to be visiting the Nox to make a new fingerslayer blade. The Nameless Eternal City gets a new section even lower down to facilitate this. We can maybe even have one of those giants in the chair-graves actually get up for a fight.

I don't want to bring in the Gloam-Eyed Queen as the final boss. That feels too heavy-handed. I also don't want to just resurrect Melina; her sacrifice is a good story moment and I don't want to ruin it. As I said earlier, I also don't want to bring Godwyn back. Him being half-dead is the whole issue here.

If you choose to put Godwyn down, your final boss is in the area in front of his corpse. You find Fia there, dead. Deathblight and worms alike gather around her corpse, swarming it, and gradually turning her into something akin to a smaller, but far deadlier, wormface.

If you chose Fia's ending or otherwise choose not to finish killing Godwyn, you fight the Twinbird instead. To avoid the gameplay troubles usually highlighted in dragon fights, it should project itself down to be more like the size of the gravebirds in SotE and fight using a sword akin to Helphen's steeple. It can fly to close gaps or return to its original size for big spectacle attacks, but should generally be more like a divine bird warrior.

I have absolutely no idea what to call this DLC

[–] GrantUsEyes@piefed.zip 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

You just took me on a ride, that's a vivid imagination you've got there!

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 2 points 18 hours ago

Hah, thank you! Pretending I'm running a TTRPG, I guess

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 6 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Probably will play some more Rise of the Ronin. I caved and bought two games during the recent sale that I am very keen on, but I should make an effort to finish games before getting sidetracked. I might crumble though, we'll see. One of them is a Soulslike and the other has Soulslike-ish combat, so they might be of more interest to this sub than Ronin. But one thing at a time I guess.

Can't really give any input on Elden Ring DLCs unfortunately as I haven't even played Shadow of the Erdteee.

[–] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 5 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

How far along are you in Rise of the Ronin? Seems like you've picking away at the game for quite a while now.

What are the games you got? Can't just drop that and not share what you're playing :D

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I am in the third and final major area of Ronin, after this is a return to the Edo area for the finale of the game as I understand it. I've played a ton of it but the game is really long, especially if you not only 100% the areas but also spend some time just fighting bosses for fun in the dojo. This last week I've played less of it though as I was hit a bit by open world fatigue, so I took a break and checked out the Out Fishing demo and played through INMOST finally (which was super good).

Well, I want to build suspense you know! I like talking about games so I don't want to blow my load early! But as a little bit of a teaser I bought Withering Rooms and Death Howl.

[–] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I hear you, especially the part about open-world fatigue as we've also talked about at some point iirc. Good on you for squeezing every bit of game out of it tho! Unless you're not enjoying your time, that is.

Alright alright, I'll let you cook :D I've played Death Howl for a couple hours and enjoyed my time quite a bit, actually. It was a little difficult at times, so I didn't pick it back up again, but it's a really good combination of games I've played before and loved. It's like a mix of Inscryption, Dark Souls, and Into the Breach: quite a wild mix, but it works! Haven't heard of Withering Rooms before, though. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts if that was your plan. :)

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 points 20 hours ago

Death Howl looks amazing but hearing it's that hard makes me little hesitant. I've also heard that it can be a little grindy. But it looks like such a wonderful work of art that I couldn't resist buying it. I hope I can manage.

Withering Rooms is a game I've had my eye on for ages but have been trying to wait for a deep sale on. But it has never been below 20% and so when it was 30% off just now I finally snapped. I've heard some really amazing things about it, it has some dodge-based combat that should appeal to souls fans, as should the vibe and storytelling. And I didn't want to keep postponing it because the sequel is supposed to come out later this year so it would be nice to play through it before then.

[–] GrantUsEyes@piefed.zip 2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

With SOTE and Nightreign, (still need to do the dlc) I think I’m good on Elden Ring/ adjacent content for a while. The world and story are already so expansive… What I’d like more lore on could be addressed with an official comic,. that would be very nice. Melina, Outer God stuff, Family drama you name it. I don’t think they'll come up with anything else but if they do, I’ll happily partake.

What I'm playing...I’m busting at the seams with reverence for this game right now. Apologies in advance ‘cause I’m about to be an annoying fuck, proceed at your own risk.

Sekiro is an elegant display of artistry in every level. truly a gaming achievement of the highest category. I’ll sing it’s praises ‘till the day I die.

Amongst all the recent DLSS 5 talk, and what feels like the imminent slopification of all visual media, being immersed in a word this beautiful feels like a balm for my soul, I needed it. they did such a fine job with these landscapes and scenery (it’s FS so I wouldn’t expect less) but the setting is so different and I’m completely taken by it. The music and cutscenes and are all incredible as well, character design and animation… Ugh, fantastic. As a whole it has brought me to the brink of tears a couple of times.

the fight design…It was a surprise discovering the variety of the encounters. not every boss needs to be addressed the same. It’s also very nice in terms of pacing as some are more like a puzzle (?) or just pure spectacle, and those serve as palette cleanser between the tough stuff, a lovely balance.

The combat system (yes, again) ahhh the sweet dopamine release of the combat. The simplicity of it, it’s joyous. at this point I feel like I have it down pretty well, and my gameplay feels fairly clean-ish which, again sparks lots of joy... (thanks Lies of P ♡ ). Even though the game does not demand perfection, I do feel incentivized to give my best performance. I want to match the challenge that is presented to me, and honor the fight’s design.. Wolf needs to look good.

Some major story points have happened, so I feel i'm very close to the end. My very surface level knowledge of Japanese history and lore leave my with a feeling that there’s much nuance that I’m missing. so I wanna dig deeper once I’m done with this run. (If anyone has a good recs for some essays or videos on the game please share, I’d appreciate it a lot)

other random thoughts:

-Lots of hidden stuff to find. Revisiting areas also yields some fun surprises, tho I’m inclined to think I did several things in a weird order, which also explains the gameplay friction I experienced in the beginning.

-Man, when did we lose our spark as apes? Apes are great.

-The Guts-Wolf parallelz are a little deeper than I thought, always love the berserk refs.

[–] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I'm glad you're enjoying your time with Sekiro as much as you are. The game's always brushed off as lesser because it's not a "true" soulslike, but come on. I'd say it's better than its predecessors in some regards even.

I'll have a look what I can find in terms of video recommendations outside the usual suspects like Vaati. Since the story-telling is a little more straightforward compared to the average affairs, there's not too much to speculate on, but I'll look around :)

[–] GrantUsEyes@piefed.zip 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The game's always brushed off as lesser because it's not a "true" soulslike.

Lesser??? This is news to me D: completely unacceptable. is it it's own thing? yeah, but wtf with that reasoning.

there's not too much to speculate on

I'm thinking more about the significance of stuff that we as a western audience might miss. There must be some interesting things, I'll look around as well.

[–] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Just reddit elitists mainly :)

Oh yea, gotcha. Have you found the more or less last major location of the game? You get there in a special way and that special way has a significance in Japanese culture. One tidbit I remember learning about in a video, for example

[–] GrantUsEyes@piefed.zip 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Yeah! Precisely that kind of stuff is what I'm talking about!

As of right now Ashina is burning and I'm exploring the castle again before going to Kuro; this feels certainly like the endgame. I Might go and try to tackle the shichimen warriors now as well before proceeding...

I'm surprised how short the game is, but it's very tight so I'm not complaining.

[–] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 hours ago

Yea you're pretty much at the end. You've got two possible endings to pursue right now, depending on what previous steps you followed.

The first playthrough usually takes the longest, but overall it's pretty short, that's true. I recently did a re-run of the game and I probably finished it in a couple hours. And that's after not playing game for a couple years. I've had runs where it was even faster