I have around 1700 hs in Destiny 2, and close to the same in Bloodborne. Over 1000 hours in the last 2 monster hunter titles. I’ve replayed resident evil 4 and castlevania sotn dozens of times.

So those are my most played games

Soulsborne games are hard, but they’re designed to teach you how to play through death. I’m gonna teach you how to play Bloodborne.

These are tips for a first playthrough, some of this advice isn’t universal but it will take the sting and uncertainty out of the game since it actually tells you very little in the way of strategies and best practices.

1. Which weapon to pick - you start out without a weapon, the game wants you to get killed, and when you do you will get a starting weapon. I’m going to make a gross generalization here, all three weapons are great, but start with the Saw Cleaver. Its arguably the best weapon in the game, and you can choose it right after you die. You can perform a light attack with r1 and if you press l1 immediately after you will do a transform attack which is 50% more powerful than your light attack and does a ton of stagger which can break boss parts allowing you to get free hits and . You can literally just r1-l1-l1-r1-l1-l1… Combo through the entire lgame. Simple and incredibly powerful. Then, pick the pistol to learn how to parry. Put all your upgrade materials into the cleaver.

2. How to level your character - if you pick the saw cleaver, it levels primarily with strength. But your first priority is to level vitality. Level your vitality to 25 before leveling any other stat. This will give you more survivability, and most of your damage will come from upgrading your weapon anyway. Skill is also okay to level, it will give you some more damage to your weapon (not as much as str) and also strengthen visceral attacks. Arcane is if you want to use hunter tools, which are neat but strictly optional. Bloodtinge strengthens your gun, but there are only 3 weapons that scale with it and they’re more difficult to use. Endurance is optional, it makes fights a bit faster cuz you can get more hits in before your stamina depletes, but you can play the whole game with base stamina no problem. Strictly optional. The max you should level any stat is 50, the exception is endurance which has a hard-hardcap at 40. Stick to vitality, str and skill until they reach their hardcaps at 50 and then you can level whatever you want and mess around cuz you’ll likely be in ng+ or higher. Honestly levels don’t matter much, you could get a cheat that levels you to level 250 and still struggle with early bosses. I’ve seen it happen.

3. How to level your weapon - bloodstone shards are used to make your weapon stronger. You can also fit gems in your weapon to make your weapon more powerful. You’ll get lots of these but level up your cleaver until it won’t take any more of a certain type. There are 4 different bloodstones, and you need 16 to level up 3 times (except the last one which only requires 1 for the final level.) Max level is 10.

4. Other tips - you don’t have to fight everything. Lots of people give up at the beginning because there is a bonfire with a bunch of enemies around it and they try to take them all on. Or you can just run past it if you know the way past. If you get stuck on a boss explore somewhere you haven’t been, or take a break. You need a clear head. Remember the game teaches by killing you so if you aren’t trying to learn a boss’s attack patterns and trying new ways to defeat them, they can be pretty difficult. Serrated weapons like the Cleaver’s untransformed mode deal additional damage to beasts, and so does fire, like fire paper and Molotov’s. Molotov’s are great, use them, and they’re pretty cheap early game. Buy bloodvials and bullets too so you don’t get caught lacking.

You can summon other players if you have PS+ so r/huntersbell is a good place to find cooperators, and they have a discord too if you don’t like reddit. This game is so good, and has tons of replay value so don’t worry if you need a little help. The story is amazing so just get through it. The DLC is 1000% worth it, if you find yourself liking the game get the dlc. Reach out of you need help or have questions, I love this game so much, and I love helping people with it so don’t hesitate!

PC version

OP said Bloodborne

Whelp looks like the ps4 will be my last Sony console, too bad

I’m gonna patent the doohickey and sue the guy who shot Shinzo Abe

I just filed a patent for white rice so now all you rice eaters owe me $20

I don’t care if that isn’t how IP law works, should a thought about that before eating all that rice ya dingus

Or you could do a 60 fps bloodborne remaster that people would actually play for orders of magnitude less money, but what do I know I’m just a plebe who didn’t lose 400 million dollars

Aah you’re correct it isn’t a PC game, PS only which accounts for the sales difference for sekiro for example. Also, dark souls wasn’t really that popular until bloodborne came out, it energized the soulsborne genre. It is a very important game, a masterpiece, but unfortunately unless you get ahold of the very recently emulated version for PC, you can’t play without a PS. Sorry, didn’t realize this was a PC gaming space. I saw concord is a Sony game, and i have a bit of a one track mind.

And yet we will never get a bloodborne remaster

Yes it does, but I imagine not all pistol parries are created equal

Sorry to be a soulsborne weeb but I have something like 1500 hours in bloodborne and I still pick it up from time to time

Android is Linux. There are also open source versions of android like LineageOS and GrapheneOS. I have Graphene and it completely changed my relationship to my phone. No bloat, just what I want.

Banking apps work fine as they don’t use google play services. Idk about the other features except maps, the open source version is OSMAnd, which is fine and works but takes some getting used to, and lacks many features/optimizations of Google Maps, which seems to get worse and worse every year.

I second this, one of my good friends only started gaming over covid. We were all hardcore souls players and helped her get through bloodborne and ds3 but she was basically just letting us handle most of the fighting. But when ER came out she got really into it and has played through solo several times. From Software took a lot of the pain points out of the format while keeping it challenging and fresh. Elden ring also has great online, I wasn’t a huge fan of the game (I prefer Bloodborne, Sekiro and AC 6) just I spent hundreds of hours just running around the Lands Between with my friends during covid.

That’s a really good point. When I first played ac6 posture was something negative that I tried to avoid happening to me, but by the time I was trying to get S in every mission, I was very much trying to inflict it on enemies. One of my favorite builds for pve was a lightweight with two pistols and two sweet-sixteen mini shotguns: the pistols build up impact until overload, then I stick the two sweet16s right in their face, which did like 220 direct hit damage. Not viable in PvP past maybe c rank but yeah once I figured out that build it def changed my outlook on posture.

And its true, in this Sekiro play through I’m very much trying to inflict posture damage. Although in my previous playthroughs I couldn’t figure out mikiri counters or low sweep kicks

That sounds epic. I can feel that flow sometimes, looking forward to the rest of the game

I guess keep coming back to it, try AC6 see if it helps lol

Lies of P is next on my list I think. AC6 is amazing, it was exactly what I wanted.

Thanks! Its amazing, I’m glad I’m getting through it this time. Might try to plat it

Thanks! Its like the perfect mix of Soulsborne and Tenshu Stealth assassin I used to play on ps1

I got stuck on the bull in one of my playthroughs too. This time he took me a few tries but it wasn’t too bad.

The fights are so exciting and the action is super slick.

Thanks!

I love From games and it always bugged me that this one gave me so much trouble. I’m gonna beat it this time, I’m gonna plat this mf

I don’t know if I’ve experienced the “click” yet but I’m progressing which is more than I could say for.previous playthroughs. I used to get stuck right in the beginning at the drunk, or with the spear shinobi hunter in the memory. I had gotten past them on one play through after a great deal of trial, but no further. I’m at Genichiro now, haven’t beat him but I’ve only fought him once and I need spirit things.

The AC 6 part was a joke, but it was the last From game I spent serious time with. As a Bloodborne player I wanted to evade everything, like I knew I was supposed to deflect but I just couldn’t get it under my fingers. Mikiri counters and those low jump attacks were just lost on me, but this time it works.

Maybe ac6 did play a part because its so fast paced and intense. I don’t think I played it that way initially, but by the time I had the platinum and was doing PvP the action was extremely intense and technical. So maybe