Topic: The Duskbloods

Which character(s) do you all like of the ones you've played? I really like Bloodhand Jan and Sniper Layla.

@Kairuuu
I stuck with Albert for the hour and a half I've played so far. Gonna try out Zork next, just on the virtue of being one of the strangest playable characters I've ever seen in a Souls game.

I used Albert for my four-ish games. Placed 2nd in two and got culled in the other two. The game plays excellently. I havent noticed any bugs or wonkyness. Although i'm having a hard time tracking my stamina. It seems like it doesnt go down at all in some instances, and in others its gone before I notice.

I did toy around with other characters in the mansion and I think Layla will be the next one I try. Also - favorite Bloodkin (i think thats what theyre called) is Baritone. He's like Hoarah Loux mixed with an opera singer. I was fighting some grunt enemies and he LAUNCHED himself at them like he was the Ultimate Warrior.

I managed to get in to play. Just not for me. Found the controls a bit unintuitive, kind of fiddly with all the buttons, stats, and item assignments. Frame rate a little janky but can forgive that on a demo test not finished. Excellent music I guess? But with it being so PvP-focused, I know I wouldn’t enjoy it much. I would just get slaughtered and it would be no fun for me. I can see how it could be fun for people who like that kind of thing, but it’s just not my cup of tea.

Having played more of the game tonight, I can confidently say I’ll be getting this day one. The movement feels incredible once you get the hang of it and the PvP chaos and the ritual sites is so much fun.

This game is really hitting a sweet spot for me and this comes from someone who never really participated in PvP in FromSoft’s games before outside of the occasional invasion.

@Chron Let me tell you, Zork is absolutely hilarious. Once you jet pack someone off the map, you will maniacally laugh your ass off. At least that’s what I did.

Man, people seemed to get WAY better already on session 2. I'm guessing some people replayed the tutorial quite a few times in between.

Reminded me again why I rarely play multiplayer. I just can't keep up with the learning curve the way other people do. Sucks I lack the ability to "git gud". But it is what it is. Unlike single-player From games where you can play repeatedly and learn an enemies patterns until you are "good" enough to prevail, actual people are learning and getting better at the same time, faster than I can.

I'll give it one more go on the final test tomorrow night, but this game may just not be for me. Despite the fact that I enjoy the gameplay, I just am left feeling frustrated in the end.

Edit: They did explain "Commendation Virtue" in the second test. If they did in the first, I missed it. The main way I could get virtue was by the collecting commendation and lighting skulls, but by the third round it wasn't enough and I had to desperately try to fight in the PvP area and just spent all that time dying repeatedly, and then getting culled.

I am pretty sure there will be ways to win PvE heavy. Once people figure out which Kin are strong and how to upgrade them properly I think people who are not that good in PvP will have a better chance. At least thats what I hope.

Yesterday I didnt manage to get even once into the final phase. Most of the time I was culled before because I was walking around exploring instead of focusing onsomething specific. The PvP itself felt decent, although I lost two rounds by trying to attack someone by jumping on them in the Ritual grounds, just to jump of the bridge and somehow getting penalized because I left the ritual area? That felt really weird.

I am a big fan of the Sniper. With the very limited playing time I can see myself playing her quite a lot.

Albert and the Axeblood guy seem omnipresent and pretty strong, although I feel the Axe guy is very limited with range.

The saurian guy seems to be very powerful once you get the hang for the saurian attack, aka making use of it properly, aka throwing people off cliffs.

The chinese lady seemed very weak for me in terms of actual combat, maybe she is ore of a backseat character with her invis ability and the snake, which I didnt manage to try out sadly.

@samurro Yeah, I’ve been using Sniper Layla a lot. She’s my favourite of those in the network test. I’ve become a bit of a fan of Zork as well surprisingly, not just because of the memes but because I typically don’t really like the slower, heavier nature of the strength classes.

I just had a match in the final three where we were all Sniper Layla and were just sniping each other and gunning each other down with the gatling gun from range. It was pretty fun. We managed to kill one player and then myself and the other remaining player couldn’t manage to kill each other in a stalemate so a countdown timer started. I ended up winning when the countdown reached zero but I’m not sure if that’s because I had more Virtue Points.

I’ve been having a really fun time with it so far and I’m very excited for the full release.

I've had a blast so far and it looks more and more that i'm going in with a day one purchase with this game when it's released.

So far i'm obsessed with playing either Zork or Layla.

I haven't really encountered any major bugs or other trouble playing and the game in this state feels pretty solid. I'm sure it will be polished even more up to release day.

Let's just hope it still will be released before the end of this year.

Did you properly test the Sniperscope view? Is it accurate? is it Hitscan or does it have delay? I wonder how useful this will be in the fullgame.

I can see Snipers setting up shop on high places and just hunting people running around in the open, if the sniper view allows.

Also day 1 for me, although I am absolutely newbie in terms of Souls PvP.

@samurro I didn't get to test the scoped view unfortunately. Things get so chaotic so quickly that I forget it's even there most of the time.

I think the issue with potentially setting up somewhere is that you run the risk of wasting time not getting virtue. It's a super cool idea in theory though!

@Kairuuu The other problem is that high places are so accessible. Once I got used to starting with a charge jump the verticality was pretty insane

@Mana_Knight I think it needed a much better tutorial (possibly in full game) that let you repeat things until you were happy with your understanding- like the last Prince of Persia. Though I understand this was a network test. Also it felt like it was going to have what I thought was the issue with splatoon 3 and Mario kart world,the matchmaking is going to give people who are just learning a terrible experience of getting regularly spanked by dedicated players and the thirty minute time if you are good and lucky for a complete match seems like an extraordinary time investment - people are going to drop matches early if they are losing badly - this kinda ruins some other PvP games. MKW at least has all those power ups that enable ridiculous comebacks when racing for time and races are short, but this is totally skills based.

@wooferjones You could replay the tutorial missions in the match select menu.

Funny, I actually thought the onboarding was one of the smoothest that Fromsoft has put out, especially coming from Nightreign's "fail your first 10 runs and eventually learn where to go" approach

@buzzhoney ha! nightreign was brutal at first. I went from getting destroyed by Tricephalous in a group to beating him by myself.