So I bought the game yesterday, and I put two or three hours into a cleric. Then I restarted as a knight, and I put ten hours into that. Being a knight is so much easier, don't have to worry about silly things like faith and miracles (though I had to put three levels into faith for my special sword).

First impressions, this being my first experience with a Demon's/Dark Souls games, are good. It's like Skyrim, but cooler and combined with the head-smacking difficulty of starting a Skate game. The world is so nice to look at, and exploring almost always feels rewarding. Combat is predictably difficult, but my go to strategy of roll around like a madman seems to be working. Bosses are cool, music is cool, the whole thing is cool.

So my dude, the Knight, has a kickin' sword, a suit of armor, and a newly acquired shield that blocks 100% of physical damage (I think, I'm still not sure what all the numbers, mean). I found my sword before Vordt of the Boreal Valley, so it's available pretty early. I have another sword that I think is technically superior, but it doesn't have the upgrades and it requires a rare material to get it up to par.

I think the boss I took the most tries on was Vordt, with over ten tries I think, since I was messing around with my equipment at the time. Did I want a shield at that point, or not? I ended up not, and just rolling around and swinging wildly. Done three other bosses (first one, Vordt, then two more), and those were easier, probably because they had more predictable attacks.

I had one person invade me, right after I un-fired the first tower, and I ended up beating him pretty handily. He tried to use spells on me, and I was having none of it. Immediately after killing him, I got cursed and killed by a new enemy type. But I won. And that's what counts.

 

Ok so I don't have a controller and can't get one right now. I have to play with KB/M, is controller best for all three games? Or just 1. I have DS1 right now, and the controls look really odd for KB/M, does this improve in 2 and 3?

 

You can get a mod to fix the kb+m mouse control, gimme a sec and ill find it...

Ok, I'm not sure if the controls have changed since DS1, but if youre going to be playing DS1 on PC you will NEED these two mods.

DS fix is the mod that unlocks the framerate and allows the game to run far smoother and prettier. Essential, and a lot of other mods run off this one.

Mouse fix runs off DS fix and changes the controls to be way more intuitive. Would recommend.

Im gonna guess the DS3 default controls will be better, the original port of DS was a pretty shoddy job that they just did more to gauge interest in the PC platform than anything else.

 

Played for another 4 hours today, with little progress.

Spoiler

Finished the wall, though I think I missed at least one path, where it was like a large dining room with multiple large axe wielding skeletons. Made it to the bottom of the wall and beat the boss in two tries (second try I cheesed him with gold pine resin).

Finished the undead settlement as well, though I know I missed one item that was hanging on the ledge near the third bonfire. Tree boss was annoying as fuck until I figured out what to do ~5 attempts, managed the kill the first time I got far enough for the floor to collapse. Also missed a second route all the way at the bottom of the ravine. Not sure how to get there, but there were still two doors locked from the other side that I didn't open. Not sure if there's a second boss in the area? I made it to the tower with the giant throwing the annoying harpoons and made peace with him (which I assume means he'll stop throwing them.) Cleared out the borean knight dude in the basement (after a cool cameo with the dude from DS1). Made it to the road of sacrifices, explored for a minute, and then called it a night.

So far, I'm enjoying the game a lot, though there are minor grievances. I still haven't upgraded my armor at all (I picked Knight starting class and have Knight armor). I picked up a greatshield early on but it needs 34 strength which I assume I won't get until NG+. Also got a chestplate from a lothric knight before the covenant in the wall, but it's heavy as fuck for minor upgrade. Right now, using straight astora sword +2 but also have a dark axe, and a sword I got from the borean knight (before the road of sacrifice) that I can't use yet. One thing I've noticed is that there doesn't appear to be a humanity system - you're just human all the time. I haven't been invaded or anything yet, but I've seen some white soapstone sigils (and also a purple one - not sure what 'mad' means in regards to that). Also picked up a companion or something at the beginning of the undead settlement but I have no idea what that means at all. Oh, and the undead settlement reminds me a lot of Innistrad.

 

Turns out I was at ~8 hours in with my Knight. Now I'm at ten. I think I did three more bosses. One of them in only one try! Except I had summoned help, who sadly died just before the boss did. He will be missed, but not remembered.

Spoiler

I'm still using the base Knight armor as well, Anarchy, and I think I'll be using it for a while. I haven't really been exploring, but I figure there have to be other Knightly sets of armor. My sword is also Astora, but the one you get right before the Road of Sacrifices.

In the Undead village, if one of your locked doors is in the sewers by a Bonfire, then you buy that key from the Old Maiden in the Firekeeper's area. For 1500 souls or somesuch. Has another locked door at the end, by the Giant's tower.

The Giant Undead Pineapple gave some trouble, the first time I did almost all of it's health, but the others I just kept getting bad luck with the arm placement after swipes.

I'm going to have to go back and explore quite a few places, like the Cathedral, like the catacombs (which apparently have a fiery lake underneath), the Undead Village. And I have to kill that dragon on the wall.

I was watching a streamer, and he had 30+ strength pretty quickly, and he started using a Great Axe. Just cleaved through things for the rest of his playthrough. My stat allocation has been less precise, mostly putting points into whatever I feel would be good. So health, endurance, strength, and whatever stats I need to use a cool item I found.

 

Anarchy: Armor can't be upgraded or infused, only your weapon, shield, talisman or staff.

 

Waiting to hear back on what people think of KBM for this. I tried to do DS1, and I hated the game more for the stupid controls than anything else.
"Press A to look right"
Presses A. Walks left. Because of course.

That said, I really should invest in an xbox controller at some point.

 

Dark Souls was made for a controller, and it shows. A controller is infinitely better than kb+m. I'm more of a pc than console gamer, and I've played games like DA:I and Witcher 3 with kb+m despite controller being better, but with Souls, there's no question - go controller. Don't have one? Save a bit of money and buy one.

If you're like me who vastly prefers DualShock to whatever that Xbox garbage controller is called, there are emulator programs that make DualShock 4 work with pc just fine, I'm using that setup right now.

Back to Dark Souls 3, the initial town part of Irithyll, Boreal Valley looks amazing. I might like it better than Heide's. I'm gonna like invading there.

 

I spent more than 500 hours playing the first Dark Souls, with nothing but a keyboard and mouse.

I honestly have no idea why people got an issue with it.

I've even played the game on a 360, and its gamepad, before the game ever came out for PC, and I can say that out of the two I vastly prefer KB+M over any gamepad, but that's just me.

The button prompts can be easily replaced by a mod from Nexus.

 

Turning my Cross-region play ON instead of OFF almost completely fixed my pvp lag problems. Previously, out of my ~30 invasions, every single one was unplayable floating no animation clusterfuck, but after I turned it ON just now, I had nine perfectly normal, smooth invasions and one laggy one, praise the sun.

Spoiler

ANOR LONDO IS BACK holy shit. Greatbow knights knocking me over the ledge all over again.

 

About 11 hours in so far.

Spoiler

Just bought the watchtower key so I'm exploring that for sure. I was dicking around in the catacombs after 100%ing everything else I could find. Accidentally missed like half of the Undead Settlement including that fire demon.

Also joined Farron's covenant for fun. Ever since Sif I've had a huge soft spot for Dark Souls dogs.

 

Spoiler

Have you actually been summoned while wearing the Farron covenant? I put it on and didn't get summoned at all in 2 hours of play.

 

About 15 hours in so far. First impressions: it's a fantastic game in most respects, definitely far superior to Dark Souls 2. My only real complaint is so far the bosses feel pretty underwhelming. I love exploring the levels and fighting mobs but the bosses feel so much easier than everything else in the game and outside of a few they're not particularly interesting either.

As an aside, does anyone know how it's determined who you can PvP/Jolly Co-op with? I've heard it's dependent on both your SL and how upgraded your weapon is, which seems bizarre.

 

Hmmm, got the game yesterday and now I'm considering whether to play as a Pyromancer or a Sorcerer.

On a side note, has anyone used the bow and arrows as their main form of offense? Me and my brother were discussing whether such a build was feasible and I'm considering giving it a go this time around rather than my typical magical play through, but I don't want to spend my time on this if it's a lackluster result.

 

Yep! I was summoned three times yesterday. The first time was a 1v1 that I lost. In the second I took down a phantom with the host then we dueled (victory). The last one was like 3v1. My sense of honour crumbled.

Nothing since then though.

 

Havent had any luck invading so far.

First one the guy disconnected 10s into the invasion. Second guy was hiding in Pharros keep, summoned 3 buddies when i got to him, then died to a mob. 3rd guy let me fight his summons while he ran to the boss.

When will i be able to utterly cornhole scared, unprepared noobs?

 

I think my save just got corrupted. I just cleared out the swamp place in the road of sacrifice and made my way to the boss (crystal something). But, I noticed that the terrain wasn't loading, and when I got to the boss, the boss health bar popped up, but the boss wasn't actually there. I waiting in game for something to happen, but nothing did, so I saved&exited. Now, when I tried to load the game, it just stays on the loading screen forever and doesn't advance.

 

So I'm now 10 hours into my first character. Rolled as a knight to start and I've switched on over to the fallen knight set with the butcher knife and the kite shield as my weapons. Had a fairly easy time with the first two bosses, first one to give me trouble was the rotted tree in the church but that was more due to not understanding his moveset than any real difficulty there. I've now made it through the sacrificial wood, killed the crystal sage, and found the entrances to both the Farron keep and the cathedral of the deep.

Have to ask, has anyone tried killing that dragon that breathes fire on Lotheric's walls? Is it like dealing with the drake in DS1 or is it something I need to wait till later for?

Also I won't deny I invade as a sunbro just for that gold and red look.

 

He flies away at 10% HP and drops a large titanite shard. Looks like just a lesser Hellkite scenario.

That really sucks. Can really kill your enthusiasm too. I hope you get it working, or at least enjoy your second character.

 

Managed to load my game save so everything seems fine for now. Played another 4 hours and

Spoiler

killed the crystal sage and went into the next area. apparantly there's 2 areas, with farrons keep being a part of the same place, and the cathedral of the deep being the next area. I didn't know that at the time so I went into the cathedral place and did a decent amount there. Killed one of those crystal spike lizards and ran through a graveyard with what appears to be infinite zombies that mutate into annoying fuckers.

Eventually, I double backed and found farrons keep, and started exploring there. Holy fuck is that place obnoxious. Not quite as bad as blight town from DS1, but still annoying. Took me awhile to figure out wtf was going on, but eventually I did. I think I collected most of the items, but there was so many, and I did my best to ignore the giants wielding trees, because fuck them. Made my way to the top of the tower and died several times on the stray demon before collecting its soul. Also, around this time I figured out what the soul transposer was, and collected some decent items (I think I turned the stray demon soul into havel's ring?) Eventually made my way to the boss, fucking annoying multi-boss in the same vein as the Four Kings (except I always found the Four Kings to be easy, soling them all the way up through NG+++++). Anyways, got rekt a few times by them before I made the next game breaking discovery - ember is the same thing as humanity. Lol. Took me getting to level 40 to figure that out, so I summoned a helper (after 10 failed attempts to summon) and beat the abyss lords in the first shot. Gold pine resin may or may not have been involved, since that shit is OP.

So, after that I decided to double back and start clearing some of the earlier levels to try and find some of the stuff I missed that I mentioned a few posts back. Ended up finding a whole other island across a bridge in the undead settlement that unlocked the one door near the 4th bonfire. got a fire stoneplate ring, which was nice.

Found the fire demon and what appeared to be another large area that I needed to explore. Killed the demon, got a northener set, a mirrah set, and some other stuff

Oh, and I also figured out what weapon skills are, but I can't feasible see them actually being useful.

current stats: level 40. astora straight sword +4, crest shield +1, full knights armor (still). my weight load is under 50% now though which is good.