Griddlelol

Managed to basically run to the bonfire. Kinda cheesy but I was sick of the camera there. I'm now trying Quelaag. I'm having trouble mainly because I keep entering the room poisoned, no remedies left, and no where to buy any.

Ok so I made it into blight town. I hate this place SO much. The camera is just not your friend here I've fallen off a couple of times just because I am practically walking blind in some areas. Makes the whole thing really stressful. I've had a funny day with it today. I killed the maw dragon (I think it's called). It was tough. Took me a lot of tries but I really enjoyed it. Forced me to learn a new strategy instead of always blocking. Then I spent about an hour trying to get cured of curse. Not a good mechanic really.

That's very useful to know. I won't be going back there for a while! On a might brighter note, I killed the Capra daemon on my first attempt! He made me quit last time, and now I destroyed him. Feel great! Although it was when I had no flask charges left and at 25% I figured out a cheesy strategy of making him fall off the stairs to stun him for a second. Officially falling in love with this game now. I think I get it. Although...now I have no clue where to go.

I just have the standard warrior set. I'm using the elite knight now for the hell of it. It looks cool and I roll the same. I guess if you follow the upgrade path with armour it eventually becomes fantastic. I Just entered Drake Valley. One electric drake at a time is manageable, two is not. Must be something I'm missing. On second thoughts, these drakes take so long to kill I might come back when I do more damage. Right now it feels like I'm banging my head against a wall.

I doubled back to the blacksmith and couldn't be bothered to go to back to where the hydra was so took a different path. Eliminated the miniboss in there and came across the moonlight butterfly. Ok this was a fairly tough fight. Took quite a few goes because I could NOT figure out how to hit her. I was swiping left and right hoping to catch her. My only ranged weapon is throwing knives so I blew those fast. Then she landed! Man, that made me feel like an absolute moron when I killed her. I think the Capra deamon? The one with the two dogs as a body guard. Can't really remember how I got there, but after taking down 2 bosses and 2 minibosses today I'm feeling pretty good! I'm getting a little tired of my armour set though. I found an "Elite Knight" set, but it looks like it's not much of an upgrade, especially as it has lower magic damage reduction, and physical attacks aren't too much trouble with a shield.

So I did a bit of exploration and managed to kill Havel and grab the cool ring he drops. Also went out and took down the Hydra. I suppose I'm going to keep pushing along that path and see what I find. I took the master key, so I don't know if that makes something more interesting. I'd quite like to steer clear of the boss I was struggling with before because I feel like it'll slow my progress down. I'm actually having a lot of fun so I don't want it to end prematurely in frustration.

I left work early because of reasons and played some DS. To my amazement I killed the gargoyles on my first go. Could not believe it. Adrenaline normally makes me play worse, but I've definitely got to more of a play style I enjoy, and it's rather conservative. Now I'm a bit lost as to where to go.

Ah, so I can't DoT and turtle against bosses. Still, 30% is a large chunk of health. I assume the guy at the bottom of the tower is worth killing. He looks it anyway. I managed to get him to 3/4 health by dodging and back stabbing him, but I only did about 30 damage per back stab and eventually I made a mistake and was squished. I thought maybe parrying would be more reliable.

Thanks again. Learning these mechanics is probably the hardest part, but also the most useful. I have a couple of more questions if people don't mind: 1) Parrying. I'm pretty OK at it, but it feels like chance a lot of the time. I came across a dude below the first boss who is wielding a massive fuck-off mace. I managed to parry him once but any mistake I made left me with zero health. What is the sweet spot? I just can't seem to get it consistently. Also is parrying viable against bosses? 2) Bleed damage. I "found" uchigatana (foolishly attacking the merchant in a panic when I saw someone) and looking it up on the wiki it says it adds 33 bleed. What does the "33" mean? Is that 33 damage per X seconds that then adds another 33 per X each time I land a strike? Or is it not 1:1 like that? Does bleed work on bosses and how long does the bleed stack last? DoTs are one of my favourite ways to do anything in RPGs and having a reliable DoT would really go a long way to getting my playstyle down.

Is...is that Reggie?! I never knew he was so ripped, but I always expected as much.

You're right, I did get the souls, but it wasn't for about a minute. I guess it glitched out or something. *Shrug* 3000 is a lot for the start, I got a couple of soul levels out of him. I'm not sure where I should be dumping my points though. I got Str and Dex to 14 as recommended, then have been putting the rest in endurance. Another question: When blocking, I sometimes take damage despite a 100% phys block shield. Is this to do with having low stamina as I'm getting hit? So like stamina debt being paid by HP.

Just an odd update that I had to tell someone... I managed to beat the first boss on about my 3rd try. However, despite me feeling like I was doing well, he jumped off the edge. I didn't get a single soul for killing him...well for letting him suicide. Couldn't stop laughing though. To make it even better, the first thing I did when I encountered him was roll off the edge. I was a little bit disappointed I didn't get to kill him normally, I had his attack pattern down and it was merely just time to finish him off.

Wow...4 months later I finally bought a PS4 controller. Works like a charm. Anyway to the point. This was a game I thought was incredibly average, but now I can actually play it; I'm in love. I'm still learning, and I'm having enough fun running around the castle beating stuff up. I think one of the best parts of this game is that as soon as I'm dead, I'm back in. That was a huge weakness for Spelunky in my opinion.

Cool, and thanks! Quality?

This is very interesting... I did cut off the tail of the gargoyle(s) boss by sheer luck, although I had the zweihander by than point so the axe seemed like a downgrade. However I didn't enjoy those big cumbersome weapons. I found fights would either end in me accidentally winning, or accidentally losing, simply by swinging and hoping. I might have to look this stuff up and just pick a weapon early on. The roll is the same as in Deamon's Souls. I'm very excited to try again tonight. Especially now I can try out my new PS4 controller.

Maybe this is the key. I play games maybe one day a week, and on my extremely old PS3, the loading times were killer too. Losing time to a cheap death is frustrating to me, because I'm losing my gaming time. DS is very hard to come back to after not playing for a week too. It's like learning all over again, but in an area designed for people who have progressed.

Thanks both! So how did you find the weapons you liked? Is there some way in-game, or is the best way to just look them up on a wiki? I don't plan on going magic heavy, maybe a couple of healing spells. Also I dumped far too many points into VIT last time I tired by the sounds of things I'd be better off going for END.

No, I'm not trying to say that. Hunting giants was so much fun. Random little villages and encounters outside were great too. I didn't know about the quest system randomly populating dungeons, that makes a lot of sense now! The overworld was good, none of it mattered though. The side quests and stories generally forced you into a dungeon which just got old for me, very quickly. My other complaint is that the whole thing needed streamlining. Individually, things felt old fashioned but when all the systems come together, it's like the designers didn't have enough time or didn't care about the little parts. Example: spamming black smithing/any skill. Tedious, but you have to do it to level it. Why? They could have done this so much better! Another example: Voices becoming more quiet as you turn away. I get they're trying to feel realistic, but I don't want to spend the long speeches looking at the gross TES faces. I look around me and miss all the exposition. The very beginning I wanted to look around me but as soon as I did I was missing speech. Why bother to make all this beautiful scenery if I'm forced to stare at the ugliest faces in video games.

I posted over in Quitters Club about Dark Souls. Now I'm posting here, I guess things just got serious. I'd quite like to plan my character and not randomly throw points into stats that don't help me with my aim i.e. finishing the game. I'm going to start Friday evening (my partner is out of town for a few days), so getting any info beforehand will be great. Firstly: DEX and STR seem to do the exact same thing, except are useful for different weapons. What weapon types use STR? What about DEX? My play style is generally focussed around either using a shield to absorb and counter attack, or using a fast weapon that allows me to out manoeuvre enemies. I think logically STR = slow weapons and DEX = fast, but I'm not sure I can apply video game logic to DS. Secondly: Once I've got to grips with the combat again, is it better to hunt for a weapon to keep, or is it better to progress through the areas and use whatever I find. My inclination is to do the latter, but again, that's something that's been ingrained into me by years of WRPGs. Thridly: Does starting class matter? In Deamons' Souls, it didn't, but I don't want to take any chances.

On Exploration in Dark Souls: I normally love exploring areas in games, but I constantly felt lost, and the game makes you pay if you get lost. Part of my issue with Dark Souls too was finding a weapon. I prefer a stable sword & board character or a katana with fast movement and quick strikes, but I could find no weapon to fit my play style. I ended up using a great sword variant that hours of toiling in the grave yard got me (again, thinking that was the area I was meant to do next). While it made short work of some things, the slow movement and slow swings were not for me. I seem to remember many critics (including myself) of Skyrim didn't say anything because it was pretty much uniformly called an amazing game. While I don't want to go into what I disliked about it too much it was really one main thing: The open world was a lie. They built this fantastic open world full of nothing. Any quest you did was inside a homogeneous cavern. I felt like I had done every quest 100 times because the caverns all looked the same. I love WRPGs, they're my favourite genre, but Skyrim was a poor example of how to do it. Then again, I don't enjoy any of the Elder Scrolls series.

I usually avoid asking for advice in games on my first play through, but I may have to break a rule. But you're totally right, I wasn't far in (although I spent 2 hours grinding assuming that the boss was so hard because I was a couple of levels low...which was so wrong). I think I'll pick it up again this week and if I need help, I'll ask!

Why can't I get into Dark Souls?! I loved Demons' Souls, but I found Dark Souls so frustrating. DS2 coming out has made me reconsider it, but I'm not sure whether I'll like it. I think what I found most frustrating is that I didn't know if I was doing it right. Never. I was doing ok, killed the 2 gargoyles, rang the bell then I was like...now what? Worked my way through what I thought was the right way, got to a boss who had 2 dogs with him. He would one shot me every time then I'd have to walk all the way back, constantly thinking "Is this the boss I'm meant to be facing?" The horrible stats too; which make no sense, and asking anyone online you get the same response: "What weapons do you want to use?" I don't know! Which ever weapons I find a long the way. I need to try it again. It's pretty cheap on steam and I just bought a PS4 controller for RE4 on PC.

This and hearthstone? *pleasure overload* my ipad battery will be constantly drained and my girlfriend will be wondering why I keep spending 3 hours sitting on the toilet.

I wonder how many zeroes they added to their annual salary.

Thanks for introducing me to this. It's really good. I'm ashamed to say I don't know where any of the hosts are from originally though.