LadyCrimson

I've level 12 and Spinning Kick is Mastered with Immolation Aura almost there and the Healing ability more than 3/4 of the way there and the Jackal maybe 1/3. I don't see it being much of a problem in that area. I even have Lucas Mastered in Shield Pummel and half way to a couple others. Perhaps it goes faster on Hardcore because the fights last longer so you use the skills more? At this point after SKick was Mastered I've been focusing on Fire Form. Combined with AI Lucas it seems to work out really well. Except for the big boss fights. Still have trouble with those. The lady in the Town Hall had poor Lucas reviving me every 90-120 seconds seemed like. Took many long tries of "almost..." heh. Haven't tried Katrina yet, I'm a stick-to-one for a long time sort.

Interesting. Reading this I thought I'd check mine. Stays steady at around 30%, more or less, for me. Nvidia, i7, no anti-virus or much of anything in the right side of the task bar. Sounds like DS3 doesn't like some background process.

Hm ok. I had 2 pts for the passive ones last time, before I went to bed...I thought maybe it was the start of some kind of progressive pattern. Odd. I've been wondering about that. I started thinking "cool, everything I use could have a somewhat decent chance of knockdown so maybe I'll become this knock-down king bwahaha", but I think I'm changing my mind on that one. @Tigranes In theory I'd love to do that (and in some games I become fair at doing stuff like it) but until I can remap keys I probably won't be able to do so terribly effectively against the high-dmg situation bosses. I have become decent at switching stances cast fire aura/jackal, switching again to cast healing and again to cast fireballs to regain the purple orbs/focus as Lucas pummels things for me, but the dodging/rolling/blocking on top of that etc. is a bit much for me.

Yeah, E. Same one you use to pick up items with, and save the game with.

I think my 2nd run through DS3 will be on Normal. I wanted to see what Hardcore was like & how I'd fare, but after that I think for this game I'll prefer it being a simple mindless romp, like I usually want my action-rpg's to be.

I liked Anjali in the demo for her melee/spell versatility - so I wanted to continue with her in the game. But on Hardcore I'm starting to think I should focus on one "stance" especially since you can gear your companion towards whatever you lack (Anjali healer/mage w/Lucas as shield/tank for example). Any opinions on that? Do you like to split it up do you do you like to specialize? How many points do you get total for lvl 30 anyway? I noticed the pts. you get for the ability bonuses seemed to increase at a certain clvl. Does that continue? I know you'll still use both stances at times for various things but I just mean boosting the bonus effects ala more damage to Shield Bash vs. more dmg for the 2H stance stuff, or more healing/dmg for the Fire Aura etc, vs. spinning kick bonuses, etc.

Or have a spouse that does. those were hilarious, especially the iphone one. Hubs main client just switched from Blackberries to iphones for no good reason and...well nvm.

Definitely nice to have all that info in one easy post to read/study, nice work. Maybe you could do one for all the known controls, too? Like I was clueless that you had to press E/use key to save the game at the save points (vs. it autosaving when I approached or something). Keep wondering if there's more things like that I'm yet unaware of. Most likely.

*slapface* Yeah, I'm batting 1000 in reading comprehension today. In that case...in my very limited experience so far, there's not too much to be done there. I have noticed, however, that it seems like if you give your companion better equipment for one stance, plus maybe focus on putting points in the...uh..bonus effects?...of those abilities, they'll tend to use that stance a lot more often, so at least they'll use the abilities of that stance more. Not 100% sure of that, but so far with Lucas, with awesome gear for his 1hand stance and utter crap gear for his 2hand, he hardly uses his 2hand at all.

Eventually consoles will come out with a "new version" with much upgraded hardware...I try to look at it this way: it means the PC I built will last me a lot longer, gaming wise, than it used to. The controller vs. keypad thing isn't going to go away I think, however. There are games that I haven't minded the way things worked in that regard (like Overlord was fine on kb)...just depends how it's done per game, for me.

I do understand wanting/expecting something closer to the original games one loves. Imagine if Diablo3 went this route of drastically altering core gameplay, there would probably be street riots. But it doesn't mean a game has to be so in order to have the rights to the name. Even tho I knew Obsidian was going to be taking a different approach, I was still taken aback by how different it was. The more I play tho, the more I like it. Perhaps not as much as I liked the more casual (and likely more replayable, imo) hack n slash of the first two, but it's still fun. Once the keyboard is (hopefully) mappable I'll enjoy it even more. Sometimes change is a good thing. The multi-player aspect, from what I've read, tho, is not something I'd like at all. I haven't tried it myself but from description I think they did drop the ball on that part. What the reasons were for those decisions of how it works, I don't know.

I'm not sure what you mean by "force." It's pretty much like similar in DS1/DS2, just use the ability you want to "master" as often as the focus or those little purple orbs will allow you to. eg If you want to Master the Spinning Kick, stay in Anjali's human form & use it all the time as her main special attack choice until the Mastery bar fills up.

The PS3 version has an image of the specific character in the background of each piece; I would assume it is the same for you poor 360 owners? The PC version only has those show up when you have the chr. with you as your companion ... or when you first meet them at least, maybe, not sure. They were all blank at the start for me.

I left it alone thinking it might give me influence points with Lucas, but nope. However after beating the angry red glowy guy, I told the quest giver that I wasn't ready to leave yet....so I went back into the room and broke it, freeing the spirit girl. The quest giver didn't say anything about it either, when I went back to say I was ready to leave. (edit: I thought she might, since she commented how I'd left her a new toy...and then I went & deprived her of it, heh) So you can have your cake and eat it too. Mmm, cake.

I know that syndrome. Mmm...now I want some cake.

Man does this game come with a manual for all these small chr. details, lol. I should check the game directory, maybe there's a text file in there. I had no idea. Don't recall a screen msg. for it popping up either. I'll check that out. Altho I have a feeling in this particular game I wouldn't find it very useful/desirable most of the time.

I wouldn't mind a Wait command for your companion so if you feel like tackling something alone for some reason, you could do that. Unless there's a way to do that already that I haven't found yet. I often don't realize those things exist until later... Lucas has made boss fights on Hardcore w/Anjali cake and pie.

You lost me. Teleport? I don't have teleport. I'm playing Anjali ... does someone else have teleport?

lol! Yeah...he's slow. But the game appears to be nice enough to "teleport" him back close to you when he gets a certain distance behind. Which was interesting. His main advantage, if you can call it that, is he has 2000 hit points.

Yeah, it's only the boss fights I think I'll have trouble with. Even hitting Q to change stances is hard for my hands nowadays. And once I can remap it so most functions can be hit with my index finger/thumb instead of having to move to the left side of the keyboard I'll be fine. I typically remap all games that way...V,B,N,G,H,Y and so on get a lot of use in my gameplaying.

I'm having fun playing DS3 even w/my hands/control issues. Much better when you don't start off with levels & all those skills from the get-go like in the demo.

Sorry if some of us are apparently not as uber awesome as you are at playing the game, but that's no reason to insult people for their lack of manual dexterity. Edit: I tend to use the W key for moving forward simply because holding the R-button down "forever" while twisting & turning it hurts my wrist. I'm kinda old and my joints aren't what they used to be, y'know.

Yeah, I'm having trouble with Vera on Hardcore largely because of the controls. Everything up to that was going fine...not much harder than Normal/demo (if you take the fact you don't start at lvl 5 into consideration). But situation w/Vera (no spoilers) is tough because I can't block, dodge, run and use skills in rapid progression. Needing to press 1, for instance, takes my fingers entirely off the WASD keys as I have to move/angle the wrist 45 degrees to reach it with my pinky or ring finger and I totally lose focus & momentum. I have trouble even hitting SHIFT, honestly, cause of my hand size & minor arthritis. I've had to resort to grinding to level up a bit first...lvl 3 wasn't cutting it w/(my) control handicap. And I still have big issues with getting stuck in the attack animation and she ends up flailing at air even tho I'm trying to attack something behind me, taking extra damage all the while. Even when I try to click the mouse a lot slower to prevent the sequence of the 3 attack animations, they still trigger. Think I'm ready this time tho. I want Lucas, darnit. Teehee.

Ah, thank you! I didn't think to try that one since it's tied to the gameplay.

So I'm just starting. I know the little glowy columns are the save points. I run across them. I stand on top of them. I've tried pressing various keys while standing there. Nothing. I look at the "Load Game" menu and all I see is the AutoSave at the start of the game. I see a button for "Steam Saves" but I'm playing Offline & have Cloud disabled anyway. Help?