Surprised we don't already have a thread for this.

I've seen countless Dark Souls frustration threads around and figured that if DLP had enough players we might be able to get some dialogue going.

As with Demon's Souls, I'm finding the game difficult to the point of an enjoyable challenge, but not to the soul crushingly difficult degree most people seem to.

I followed some of the reviewers who received early copies, one described the first real boss encounter,

He goes on to say that it took him countless tries and "three hours of continuous failure," before he finally killed it. When I first read that I expected the same, upon reaching the boss I was sorely disappointed, and came to realize that the reviewer just a moron.

Every combat situation requires thought, control, and a bit of luck. The Taurus Demon required a single death and a comment along the lines of "Oh, I'm fucking retarded." before heading back up and taking care of him.

I've always been a cautious gamer. I go into most situations expecting the worst possible scenario, besides DOOM 3 and a select few other games, Demon's and Dark Souls are rare in that they actually deliver those scenarios.

This game just appeals to my nature, but I can understand why most people are frustrated to the point of throwing their controllers.

So far I'd say the most difficult thing is simply the grind between your bonfire and the next major event. A few lucky hits and you're running back to the bonfire to refill your flask, respawning every creature you just defeated.

Haven't been invaded yet, but I'm looking forward to ambushing the dumb motherfucker that tries first.

Thoughts? Comments? Anybody else even playing this?

 

Well it only comes out today in Australia, but I'll probably wait until after my exams to buy it. That said, I will definitely buy it. Finishing Demon's Souls was one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had, so Dark Souls is a must.

How much did From Software carry over from the original? I guess that gameplay would be pretty similar, but what is the biggest difference?

And the reviewer's description of that boss is a lot like my first fight with the Adjudicator from DeS. That motherfucker murdered me so many times before I figured out the melee was fifty times easier (I was playing a royal).

Also, classes, items and builds? Anything in particular you've found thats OP?

Edit: What? Why the hell are you looking forward to invaders? My experiences with them are generally being fucked hard by some dickhead with either the scraping spear, the cleaver or the dragon bone smasher. I learned to fear those motherfuckers and fear them hard, not look forward to them. You are insane if you want them there.

 

I've played a fair amount of this game, and got properly stuck a whole lot, too. I am really enjoying it, but at the same time, I'm not entirely sure about this one. It's definitely a sequel to Demon's Souls, but I don't know, it doesn't feel quite as fair as DeS did. Similarly hard- I daresay harder- but yeah. Less fair. Then again, I'm still very underpowered at the moment. I only just rang the first bell.

 

I've got this going on. Currently stuck regretting not taking a high faith class, considering I just found Astora's Straight Sword but don't have the reqs for it. A lot of grinding ahead, considering I'm five levels away and my cost is up to 3k now. Sigh.

Proper hard is right, though. Really brings you in with every death. I have trouble remembering the last time I hated anything like I hate the black knights.

 

Haha, my reason for looking forward to an invader is in part related to your question regarding OP items, weapons, etc.

My starting short sword had a power of 54, by level 10 I had the Drake Sword (Flying Dragon Sword) with a power of 200. Every enemy in Undead Berg bar 2 (and the bosses) die in either one or two hits.

By level 12 I had an even better sword, one of the Black Knights', that I wouldn't be able to use until I had my strength up higher. My shield also came from a Black Knight.

Between those weapons and the ridiculous shards I found to upgrade them, I'd be shocked if someone within 10 levels of me can actually take me in a face to face fight.

At this point I'm only playing online until I get invaded once. I can't stand the tips that people leave, and yet can't stop myself from reading them. Playing online is far easier than offline and I just feel like I'm cheating.

Despite the comments on the weapons, I really don't think that they're OP, getting them early on just makes them seem that way. Killing a Black Knight at level 10 with nothing but a short sword and a wooden shield is no small feat, and entirely deserving of a reward.

The bonfires are easily the biggest difference, they change the game completely. While it's great to have a place to save, going back to the bonfire respawns almost every enemy. You'll often find yourself with a single charge in your Estus Flask and a legion of enemies in front of you, your last bonfire a quarter mile away and the path to it littered with a veritable army of corpses. The question at that point is... do I go forward and take the chance of dying? Or do I go back and refill, hopefully making my way back here with more health to fall back on?

There's a trick to them if you want.

Spoiler

Backstab the hell out of them, run for your fucking life until you find a ladder, climb the ladder and wait for the Knight to return to his previous position, go back and backstab, rinse and repeat.

Only realized that on my second character (restarted due to a plot-threatening screw up of epic proportions) and even then it was by accident. Ran my ass off and just happened to stumble upon this method.

In most games, I generally try to stay pretty honorable in the way I kill enemies and bosses, killing them in the intended method before going back later and trying to break the game. Dark Souls is an exception. I'll take a kill any way I can get it. And instead of thinking "aww but I cheated so it doesn't really count..." all I can think is "I'm still alive and you're not, that just means I'm smarter than you."

 

There is a thread for this, but whatever. I haven't gotten my Dark Soul's copy yet, but I agree, the best part of the game will be invading and receiving invaders. Nothing like the thrill of a douche bag invading your world and threatening to kill you and make you restart the level.

What's the multiplayer system like? Can you invade a certain friends world if you know their username or whatever?

 

I'm without an ethernet cable at the moment, so it's just me and the hordes of enemies at the moment. My main at the moment is my Wanderer start - packing Astora's +1 and Dragon Shield +1 with massively pimped start gear is enough to take most people.

Crowning Moments of Badass for me: killing the hydra on the first try, beating the lightning shooting one-legged statue thing around like a short-changing hooker, sword-dropping three dragons from a near-lethal fall distance in the Valley of Drakes (even though they triple-lightning breathed me before I could recover afterwards, the moment was worth it).

Crowning Moments of Rage-Quit: Boss at the bottom of the Taurus tower keeps one-shotting me with his overhead - it's unblockable. Same for the black knight at the top of the parish tower, can't seem to kill him. Also, I'm out of Transient Curses, so I can't fight the fucking ghosts in the Ruins (help, anyone?). Getting ganked by two extra porcupine black cat horrors in the Garden right as I'm almost done killing the first. Those poison-dart fuckers in Blighttown. Poison rats. Losing 8000 souls in one go because I didn't know the trees in the Garden could eat me.

Crowning Moments of Funny/Satisfaction: Firebombing the firebombers. Ripostes. Sparta-kicking the big graveyard skeleton off the edge. Stealing all the giant dragon's treasure. Dragging one stuck corpse around for nearly ten minutes. Dual-wielding shields. Raping the black knight in the Garden because he didn't have enough space to wield his halberd. Dragons in the Valley flying straight off the edge.

I'm serious about the ghosts thing, though. Does anyone know where to get more Transient Curses? Or should I just keep trying to blitz through them?

 

Picked up this game from Amazon because of the review here and it's definitely one of the more difficult games I've ever played. Fucking zombie swordsmen do unholy amounts of damage if they get a swing or two off, and if you mistime your parry by half a second you'll get a nice big sword through your chest. Still, I beat the Asylum Demon without too much trouble (only died twice, once when I first went in and once when I misjudged a diving roll).

 

It's only going to get harder for you.

 

The only boss so far to give me real trouble was the goat-headed, duel-wielding fucker and his pet dogs. He's a fun, simple, straight up fight once you kill his pets.

 

Finally got my copy and I fucking love this game. I love the Bonfire system, which is a huge improvement on the Archstones. Now I can have all the enemies respawn and heal all statuses immediately. Still, anybody know f we can teleport from place to place later on in the game?

It's funny, but none of the bosses have been hard so far. The Dark Knights, Havel, and the assassins are the cause of most of my deaths, especially Havel. The bastard keeps one hitting me with the two handed smash.

 

Finally got around to getting this game. Goddamn its good. I died a bunch of times trying to kill the skeletons in the Firelink graveyard before I realized I could speed run it. The first Black Knight scared the shit out of me. He was so big and forceful. Not enjoyable. He killed me in three hits, and then next life I killed the Taurus Demon without any deaths.

I love the way I can still get caught by simple traps if I'm not careful, but I can also kill a boss in one life if I play correctly. Greatly looking forward to the rest of this game.

Thinking that more people should share, maybe some tips and advice, or just cool stories and shit they found etc etc.

 

Beginner tips:
Drake Sword and lightening spear are good starter weapons. Actually, any elemental weapon is pretty good for your first run through.

Oh, and:

Spoiler

If you get to the top of Firelink shrine and crouch in the crows nest you can go back to the asylum and fight a harder version of the first boss for 30,000 souls. It's fairly worth it to do it early game, though it takes a while.

End Beginner tips.

From what I've done, aside from magic, I don't see results of builds until new game plus. That bugs me a lot. Also means that almost every time I end up doing the first run through with an elemental weapon.

Also sad some of the cooler weapons are just weaker than upgraded normal ones. (see Demon's Spear)

As for story:

Spoiler

So, when you reach the top of Sen's fortress there's a giant who throws exploding death balls at you. Most players kill him before fighting the boss, but I was invaded somewhere near the beginning and rushed my way to the boss without killing mentioned giant.

Turns out the giant will throw those exploding balls onto the boss arena if you don't kill him. This was one of my later playhthroughs, but I never bothered to let him live so it surprised me. I put up a good fight but died. The fact I skipped dropping the shortcut in my rush didn't help.

I'm gonna go back and try to beat that boss without killing the giant at some point. Just because.

Builds(because I like hearing these):
Vit w/ Lightening Claymore
Dex w/ Lifehunt Scythe/Priscilla's Dagger/Queelag's Furysword
Magic w/ Painted Guardian Sword and Demon's catalyst*
Dex/Faith w/ Dragon-Slayer Spear/Great Sword of Artorias**

*Yes, there are stronger catalysts(and I have them), I just like the demon one. And I only use the swords because they're awesome and almost never drop. (I got two within a minute of each other, was one of the best moments in the game for me)
**This build isn't really complete. The spear mentioned requires 24 Strength and Dexterity to wield, but it scales best with dexterity and faith(AKA: thin stat spread). I'm in ng+, but my fire spear is still stronger. It's annoying.

I wouldn't call elemental weapons OP so much as other things just weaker until fully upgraded/late ng+.


Obligatory Side note: Fuck wheel skeletons. Fuck them hard.

 

For those that missed it.

Dark Souls II

Website
Trailer

No idea if it's a sequel or prequel. Don't care actually. More Lore, more death, more fun?

Excited.

 

Dooooooo wannnnnnt. Dark Souls is probably the best game I've played in at least the past 2 years. It looks like a sequel, possible, because the beginning looks like the last area in the game - Kiln of the Ash, but I could be wrong. But I never did play the DLC either, so I'm not sure where that fits in.

 

The DLC expanded on the middle section of the game so the last area is still Kiln of the First Flame.

And as for this "sequel", I'm tentatively excited. New directorship means that the game is heading towards a different direction from the previous "Souls" games and I'm not sure I like that. This new director saying how he's going to make the game more direct is also something that I'm not excited about.

I originally played the game because it was hard and I liked a challenge. But I continued to play it afterwards for the story, a unique story that manages to make you feel like an utter dick for killing some of those bosses. It was done in a very subtle way through dialogue and item descriptions and that made the game very memorable for me, not the difficulty. I'm really worried with this new director and his aim to making it 'more direct'. If it's on just level design, I suppose it won't be as bad but if it's story-wise, then I feel they'd have taken what made that game so special at least for me personally.

 

Spoiler

Talking to The Fair Lady ( or Quelaan as she's sometimes referred to by fans, despite never being named in the games.) after killing Quelaag... One of the few decent "people" in this game and you deprive her of the one person who both comforts and understands her.

Even Quelaag who aggros right away might not be the monster everyone thinks she is. One of the accepted reasons for Quelaag attacking on sight is that she's harvesting Humanity to save her sister.

Knowing their stories just makes it even worse...

Those moments that a game just makes you go "Aww, aw come on..."

---

I think a major reason a lot of people can't get into the game (difficulty notwithstanding) is the lack of any type of linear story. People like an overarching narrative, something that gives their actions a sense of scope, Dark Souls is severely lacking in this area.

Gamers don't mind a challenge, as long as they actually know what the hell they're actually doing it for. Dark Souls throws you straight into the deep end and with absolutely zero explanation.

Now please don't get me wrong, I fucking love this game, but I can understand developers wanting to take a more "direct" approach when it comes to story.

 

The indirect method of storytelling is probably my favorite thing that the Souls games do. I don't like this news at all.

 

The game gives you a whole 'tutorial' level where you can practice timing on blocks, parries, backstabs, etc. It's the player's own fault for going past it if they haven't sufficiently prepared themselves. And while it wasn't 'linear', the game sure as hell made it clear that you weren't supposed to go at certain places yet.

And storywise, there is absolute no incentive for me to keep playing if they simply threw the lore at my face. What the Souls series did well was give you information, but only enough for you to know certain parts while intentionally leaving the more deeper parts ambiguous. This leaves your own imagination to piece together those tidbits into one expansive storyline that suits you. By taking that away and making it direct, they'd be making this into some other hack-off RPG like Kingdoms of Amalur.

 

The lack of a coherent narrative is one of the things preventing me from jumping on this game. Also the price at the moment, and I've heard it's not very well optimized for the PC, but I'm not sure on the specifics on that last one.

I like stories, characters, themes, etc., and I tend to prefer things laid out for me. Hidden secrets and stuff are perfectly fine and enjoyable, but that shouldn't be all that's there. If I'm fighting something or going somewhere I'd like some context, plus I want some information on who I'm supposed to be playing as and their motivations.