Played about 5 hours, got through the first two bosses. Have only died 5 times so far (died twice on first boss, one shotted the second one easily). I'm being pretty thorough and taking my time, exploring every nook and cranny. Not really finding it difficult yet. The hardest thing is how crummy the estus heal is, seems like it barely restores 1/3rd of your bar.

Seems they have made the shield slightly less effective than previous DS games. Blocking is still obviously better than getting hit, but just hiding behind your shield seems less good.

Here's a question...

I think my biggest stress today waiting to play is going to be deciding which starting class to use lol. I love a balance of both melee and spell caster. It seems assassin would be the no brainer but not sure I'm a fan of the high dex to which I usually ignore unless I find a weapon I really want that requires that stat. I try to balance str/int basically while spreading out the rest of the stats and ignoring faith and mostly dex.

Also, since I have been playing DS2 a lot recently...did I read correctly

Regarding boss in Undead Settlement area.

Regarding the first boss

Maybe it's my imagination, but I think the jumping/falling mechanics int his game are different, to the point of further punishing being heavily burdened.

I don't 100% remember how it was in past Souls games, but it seems that with heavier gear you jump significantly less far than you did in past souls game, to the point where you actually have to take off gear to make most jumps. I don't ever remember having to do that in past DS games. This of course would be more realistic, but also kinda of a pain.

Also I think falling damage is vastly different depending on equip load. I think in previous souls games you took more damage from falls wearing more weight (I remember stripping for the well in Majula), which again makes more sense, but my inkling is that it's even a greater difference this game, even short falls seem to hurt you a ton if you are decked out in super heavy ****.

Based on my "feel" early on with the shields too, they have sorta revised things to make tanking up overall less good (still very viable, just less of an EZ mode). They said in BB they didn't like people just hiding behind a shield the whole and wanted to promote a diff play style and I think some of that philosophy is still present.

I mean heck, armor upgrades are gone too (also borrowing from BB, you can't upgrade armor there, etc)

I also really like the innate weapon skill system, it seems it will add a lot of depth and flavor to the combat move set.

It took me awhile to figure out and was driving me crazy, but the icon in the lower left of the shield indicates whether they can parry or whether or not they activate the weapon's skill.

I think they also did a much better job of explaining on the various weapon upgrade paths were and why you would want to pick one over the other, etc.

Has anyone else figured out why you sometimes randomly get extra flask charges?

I know in DS1 you got one whenever someone kindled a bonfire in your area, but I have no idea what's triggering them in DS3. Given the super limited number of charges I'm always super stoked to randomly get extra ones, but I'd love to know what's causing it so I can like, try to keep making it happen.

tick tock tick tock...almost done with work. I have narrowed it down to either going with the Assassin or Sorcerer as my starting class. I normally am a knight that uses soul spells (str/int combo) so I am interested in starting with a different class this time around. Hopefully I don't get owned since both of them start with crappy armor and shield.

You get one anytime an invader dies and also from killing certain tough enemies. I don't know if it's a 100% drop for certain enemies or random, though. I haven't paid enough attention.

You crazy for this one, Miyazaki.

Got my copy and ready to run blind!

Too bad those jerks at target gave me a gigantic prima strategy guide, thanks for tempting me

Think I'm going to roll with a Herald, I have a feeling I'll be needing those healing miracles early on

Undead settlement

Strategy question - I picked up a raw gem early on, which I think gives a weapon higher base damage and ****ty scaling. Is the start of the game the best time to use that sort of thing, when a.) my stat levels are low enough that I'm not benefiting a lot from scaling anyway, and b.) I don't have any awesome weapons yet that I'll want to carry into the lategame?

edit: maybe not, even my starting long sword would, at level 20, only go from 110+20 to 143+0. Why are these good?

Wondering that as well, goofy.

Played about 3 hours so far, and it is unsurprisingly amazing.

I'm assuming that they work the same as in ds2

Basically it's for min maxing your build. Ideally you use it on a weapon that has no scaling at all, like santiers spear in 2

You're right that it'll likely work better early on, but only really if you're planning on leveling anything other than str/dex.

You open illusory walls by pressing X (PS4, I guess A on xbox) in front of them, right? I'm assuming every "illusory wall/hidden path ahead" message I come across is just a troll because none of them work, assuming I'm doing it right.

Oh sweet, Herald starts with a 100 percent physical block shield

Knight too.

All the best weapons I've found so far are dex weapons, y u no give me a good sword DS3

You have to hit the wall.

I think I've been doing that too, I still blame trolls.

I've noticed one instance where enemy layout/spawning changed based on which bonfire I spawned at, in Undead Settlement:

Huh. That's weird. He's always there marching with a couple guys and dogs whenever I spawn there.