Sully907

Dark Souls(Demon's Souls successor)

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@PiratePooAndHisBattleship:

I did the same to the Drake (without falling off). I presumed he flew off as he does and would be back but then noticed I had gained the 10000 souls. Poor Drake! I imagine it's to do with the way area/entity loading is done as much as the clipping through geometry as after shooting him he went into his flight animation and instantly disappeared. Also, before I sniped his tail I couldn't see him from that tower.

I was off work sick yesterday, spent the whole day in bed. Guess what I did to pass the time? I'd gotten to a frustrating point with my thief where the only weapon I was proficient with wasn't enough for bosses in general (Gargoyles grrr) and had no magic/reliable ranged attack either. So I started a new character, a knight, in hope of wielding heavier hitting weaponry with a side order of magic. After 4hrs I was almost back to where my thief was but I had some very different frustrations and ended up going back to my thief. I just love the way he plays and the Estoc, despite it's weaknesses, coupled with backstabbing works great for most enemies.

So then I spent another 4hrs as my thief in which I explored everywhere I could and hadn't previously, putting any fear of losing stuff behind me. I collected some great items along the way and finally figured out that it's better to face bosses in human form because co-op boss battles are awesome and mighty helpful to an underpowered thief. I feel pretty deep into the game after this experience, I've linked up many of the places I can access which feels great after wondering how to get to many of them for such a long time and I've finally rang that damn bell. Currently I'm preparing to fight

a butterfly

.

Sno, I have similar frustrations with the command stacking when I use my talisman to heal twice in a row. Those things are precious to me!

Lastly, f*ck Ghosts.

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I've also read that the game can dive into a constant autosave state that has been reported to overheat consoles and wear out hard-drives. (The flame in the corner won't disappear if it starts.) Apparently something to do with the NPC Lautrec is the most common trigger. (I remember my game actually started doing this, but stopped when i

killed him shortly after meeting him

.)

Yeah, I can confirm this one as it happened to a friend of mine, it can happen after you meet Lautrec if you fight him then and there. Sometimes even if you kill him it will continue. I'm not using spoiler tags here even if it is mildly spoilery because this is such a bad bug - so if you rescue Lautrec of Carim, DO NOT FIGHT HIM. He will show up in the Firelink Shrine area (specifically, down the spiral stairs from the bonfire) and you can fight and kill him then without any problems, as far as I know. But there are definite issues with attacking him the first time you meet.

Lastly, f*ck Ghosts.

Haha, yeah. I haven't fought any ghosts yet but I hear you're not really meant to until significantly later due to their inability to be targetted unless you are cursed or have a transient curse item or (I think) a divine weapon.

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I can vouch for the save bug triggering if you attack him right when you first let him out of his cell, but it stopped when i killed him. Took a couple respawns, but he's slow and easy to backstab. (Lure him out into the open so you have more room to move.) After i killed him, the autosave stopped and the game started working normally again. There must be something screwed with that NPC's scripting. As far as i'm aware, it's the only really serious, reproducible, and detrimental bug in the game.

I mean, i've also read stories from people complaining about getting stuck in walls, the game crashing, saves corrupting. None of it seems particularly widespread, just things somebody will eventually report for any game. The PS3 version sounds more prone to crashing, though.

Haha, yeah. I haven't fought any ghosts yet but I hear you're not really meant to until significantly later due to their inability to be targetted unless you are cursed or have a transient curse item or (I think) a divine weapon.

You can target them, you just can't defend against or harm them without being cursed or using a temporary transient curse item.

You also don't actually have to go into that area until very late in the game, at which point they're very easy to deal with. If you head into there earlier though, there's a lot of good items in the areas that are accessible at that point. (Such as -

The only NPC that can cure curses, an incredibly useful curse resist ring, and one of the highest-damage bows in the game.

)

Also, divine weapons don't do anything to the ghosts. The only particularly evident effect of the holy status on a weapon is, i am told, preventing the catacomb skeletons from reviving. (This is why NPC's keep telling you to forge divine weapons for the catacombs.)

You can also just kick them off ledges, since they won't revive from falling damage. The other option is killing the necromancers actually reviving them, there's about five or six throughout the first few areas of the catacombs. They count as minibosses, so they won't respawn when you hit a bonfire. I actually didn't understand that divine weapons were supposed to be able to put down the skeletons permanently, so i carefully worked through that area by kicking skeletons off of edges and hunting down the necromancers.

As for occult weapons, i have no idea what weapons with dark status do, i wish i did. Anybody know?

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After my deeply unsettling experience in the depths last week I couldn't bring myself to explore the area properly and settled for going up against the giant creature in the Darkroot area (didn't put spoilers on this as everyone seems to have moved past me now).

I actually beat it first time as none of its attacks could make enough of a dent in my stamina so I have progressed quite deep into the level and getting excited about what I might find.

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Ugh, I finished the game, and started NG+, and I'm really wishing I would have gotten the masterkey. Since I know where and what I'm doing now, not being having to go through every motion would save a lot of time.

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I mean, i've also read stories from people complaining about getting stuck in walls, the game crashing, saves corrupting. None of it seems particularly widespread, just things somebody will eventually report for any game. The PS3 version sounds more prone to crashing, though.

In about 10 hours time, the game crashed 3 times. Kind of annoying, but managable. The thing where you input a command but there is like a second delay, that happened to me too many times. Hope the patch fixes that.

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I enjoyed that exchange twmac and my feelings are similar to yours about a lot of things.

I liked the re-reading chapters of a book bit. It does feel a bit like that, coming back to a section with more understanding and appreciation rather than a dull grind. Your friend Dylan sounds like he was trying to push through the game too much rather than explore it. I felt like that in the beginning, especially when stuck on certain bosses (Taurus/Gargoyles grrr). I was focused too much on beating them and moving on to the next boss. But then I started to explore the rest of the areas and even systems that I'd ignored through a combination of fear and lack of observation. I had nothing to lose at those two points so I had a different attitude to dying, I just wanted to see as much as the game would allow if I wasn't able to get past this stupid demon. By exploring though I gained more insight and tools that helped me through those barriers eventually and that's when "elation" comes in to play.

It speaks volumes for the level/world design that it is such an eternally interesting space to explore. It's not a huge world but a compact and incredibly varied one. Even with no enemies I never get tired of rolling through barrels, they're like Mario's coins in the way they attract me.

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Thanks C4T, the to and fro happened over the course of a couple of days and about halfway through it occurred to me that it would be a waste for it to be completely lost.

Dylan is a fun person to bounce off of as he generally has an interesting take on whatever game he is playing, he also has some ridiculous biases (if it is made by Monolith he will find reasons to love it).

I very much concur on the exploration, so far it has been really fun to hit a brick wall then just spend time exploring a different venue or area. Incidentally the last two images in the post are my two characters 'Dave' and 'Davejnr'. They are both sporting the hollow shield and Spear routine but their garb is widely different. The Dave one was taken at around the 20 hour mark, and the Davejnr one was taken at around the 6 hour mark.

Man, it is 9AM and already I am thinking about playing some more Dark Souls.

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So I got sorta screwed by the game today. Not in a game breaking way, but in a "I don't get cool shit now" way. After acquiring the Lordvessel, I returned to Firelink Shrine, however the NPC

Kingseeker Frampt, the World Serpent

was asleep. I didn't want to hit him because the game has pretty much taught me that you can hit important, peaceful NPCs and screw yourself out of them forever. So I went away for a while.

A while back, I came later, but he was still asleep, so I decided to go to an area I had heard was relevant to my stage of the game (

down the hole he comes out of, if you jump down you go to the chamber beneath Firelink where you can place the Lordvessel

). However, upon going there and doing the thing I was meant to do at this point, I came back up to Firelink and he now hates me. He basically gave a terse goodbye message and left for good.

As far as I know I can still progress in the game, but I will now never get his dialogue, and he's one of the few NPCs in the world that actually has story-relevant information to give you. So, as a warning, once you have the Lordvessel you might want to read what I did in the spoiler tags and not do it. Apparently you actually can whack him to wake him up (not sure if you need to unequip your weapon first so that it just hits him with your first) or if you go far enough or spend long enough away he apparently might just be awake when you come back.

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*snip*

Don't worry about it.

He never really has anything interesting to convey to you, the role he plays isn't actually that important, and the services he provides as an NPC are fairly useless.

You can also lose him if

you find the Darkwraith covenant, but the Darkwraith covenant actually does convey interesting story-relevant information.

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I'm definitely regretting not picking the master key initially, now that I finally beat the game and took my character into NG+, I know exactly where and how I need to go, but I have to take the long way around still heh

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I'm definitely regretting not picking the master key initially, now that I finally beat the game and took my character into NG+, I know exactly where and how I need to go, but I have to take the long way around still heh

With the master key, there's a few areas you can completely skip. (Like the sewers and most of blight town.)

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So, I'm in a bit of a funk with this game. Mainly because Deus Ex HR was around for a crazy price so I finally got it, but...

I just defeated the Boar. I don't know what to do about the dragon and have no ranged anyway to do any cheap stuff. Those bloody archers up there above where the boar used to be are doing my head in!

But yeah... not really posting to complain exactly. Just kind of drifting into a break from the game. I might throw it on later just in case that break turns into "I played that game once and I liked the start but then I didn't play it anymore"

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Something that's definitely worth knowing is that you don't have to fight the drake on the bridge. You can totally ignore it for a good long while... in fact the area beneath it is totally optional for the entire game anyway.

As for the archers, I don't know if you noticed or not but there are colonnades on the right as you come into the boar area, and in there are some stairs going up to where the archers are.

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Something that's definitely worth knowing is that you don't have to fight the drake on the bridge. You can totally ignore it for a good long while... in fact the area beneath it is totally optional for the entire game anyway.

As for the archers, I don't know if you noticed or not but there are colonnades on the right as you come into the boar area, and in there are some stairs going up to where the archers are.

Cheers, I did notice that. The drop attack was a major reason I defeated the boar. They're just a pain in my behind. I think I'm just rubbish at this game! Funny enough though, just posting here has gotten me interested in throwing it on a bit later... So perhaps the bug is still there after all!

I have gotten a bit further, and got the Knight's shield after beating a much more powerful enemy, but was then killed by the same type of enemy I think, a little further on? I'll have to go on and explore again.

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I have gotten a bit further, and got the Knight's shield after beating a much more powerful enemy, but was then killed by the same type of enemy I think, a little further on? I'll have to go on and explore again.

I think you only have to fight one of them to get through to the bonfire, though there's about six or seven of them total in the area. (Watch out for the ones with the small shields, they have a parry stance.)

When you go over the small rickety wooden bridge, take the next right.

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I think you only have to fight one of them to get through to the bonfire, though there's about six or seven of them total in the area. (Watch out for the ones with the small shields, they have a parry stance.)

When you go over the small rickety wooden bridge, take the next right.

Yeah, the parry stance is when they go into a kind of fencing pose with their rapiers (the ones with the larger sword and shield don't do it). If you hit them with a normal attack they'll parry and riposte and you'll regret it. You can, however, hit them with a leaping attack (flicking left stick up at the same time as heavy attack - I don't always manage them, I must admit) or just back off a bit and wait for them to stop.

If you do take the right, make use of the amenities in that area but do not try to progress in that direction. Your objective is at the top of the church and trying to go the other way will probably be even harder at this stage.

Edit: Also, I'll reiterate there is an elevator system directly across from the right hand door (looking at it from your direction) which will take you down to Firelink, and can be used to go up and down after having been used once.

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I'm scouring the The Depths at the moment which I'm hoping provides a better entrance into Blight Town than the Drake Valley one I've found. There's a foreboding boss battle before then though. I don't know what it is yet but I'll have to face it once I've uncursed myself, grrr!

On the plus side I have a Divine Estoc now and while it's slightly worse for the mean time, I'm hoping it proves useful in the long run. Going to have to farm those slimes some to upgrade it though.

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I'm scouring the The Depths at the moment which I'm hoping provides a better entrance into Blight Town than the Drake Valley one I've found.

To be honest - No, it doesn't. It is a much longer and more difficult path. The Master Key, which you used to open the door into the valley of the drakes, has let you potentially skip all of the depths and most of blight town. Don't do it though, you'll get many valuable resources out of the depths and blight town, it's definitely not worth skipping on a new game.

There's a foreboding boss battle before then though. I don't know what it is yet but I'll have to face it once I've uncursed myself, grrr!

It's actually a pretty easy boss, just don't bother trying to lock on and do everything you can to stay behind it. I think it's a good place to set down a summon sign in front of and farm for souls via co-op.

As for curses, the launch day patch made the game considerably more forgiving about curses, it made it so the undead merchant in the aqueduct sells very expensive curse cures. (Curses also apparently used to stack, halving your health each time. That doesn't seem to happen in the current version of the game.)

The alternative cure, which was originally the only option, is an NPC deep in New Londo that can cure curses.

There is also a wonderful curse resist ring somewhere in that whole area, it made curses largely a non-issue for me in my playthrough.

On the plus side I have a Divine Estoc now and while it's slightly worse for the mean time, I'm hoping it proves useful in the long run. Going to have to farm those slimes some to upgrade it though.

If you're playing a faith build and keep upgrading this weapon, it eventually will be a good and reliable tool. (Though the way the numbers add up, divine and occult are some of the weaker the weaker upgrade paths, unless your faith stat is giving gains that make it worthwhile.)

At +5 you'll have to find more embers to keep upgrading it. There will be two you can find, opening up two different paths. You can keep pushing it to +10 divine or make it into a +5 occult weapon. (I'm honestly not clear on the differences between holy and dark attributes, and the other differences are fairly negligible aside from better stat scaling on occult weapons.)

If you don't like how it's turning out, but don't want to bail on your estoc, you can revert through the upgrade tree and pick a different path. Just remember that you gain back none of the expended resources doing this, and in fact have to spend souls to do so.

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Thanks Sno. I uncursed myself at expense, beat that boss 2nd go and realised that yes

it is a worse way into Blight Town. I did however get a lot of good stuff out of it so I agree that it is worth going through at least once. In fact to upgrade my Estoc, I'll be visiting the depths quite a lot for slimes. I'm at the Chaos Witch now but damn does she take a beating.

I'm going to retreat to upgrade and restock a few things. Blight Town is the most challenging area for me so far, I'm feeling ill equipped for a lot of things.

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I'm going to retreat to upgrade and restock a few things. Blight Town is the most challenging area for me so far, I'm feeling ill equipped for a lot of things.

That's normal. Blighttown is one of the most complained about areas in the game. For my part, I killed the witch and never looked back (except that actually you have to go back to the area below her later on).

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I like the nature of it, precarious walkways, rickety floorboards an all. My main gripe is lower down with the constantly re-spawning flying things. I kill a pair in hopes of wading through the next area of poisonous swamp unimpeded and there's already another two preventing me getting across again! They're really quite annoying.

That and the horrible frame rate around the area. It's definitely the worst I've encountered so far.

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That's normal. Blighttown is one of the most complained about areas in the game. For my part, I killed the witch and never looked back (except that actually you have to go back to the area below her later on).

I didn't really find Blight Town particularly difficult, just annoying. It's confusing to navigate, has horrendous framerate problems seen nowhere else in the game, there's the unavoidable poison-state from the swamp, the toxin enemies that are just everywhere, and the infinitely respawning mosquitoes. (At least the blow dart enemies are tagged like mini-bosses, they never come back.)

There's also a lot of unique loot seen nowhere else in the game. If you just blew through it quickly, it's worth going back to once you're better equipped to deal with it a little more casually. (

The giant leeches at the far end by the great hollow are also a great way to farm green titanite and titanite chunks

.)

Edit: Also, this game is getting to me. I just had a dream where i was just wandering around my home doing daily chores and was suddenly locked by a fog wall into a room to be invaded by a black phantom. I thought to myself "Oh shit, i'm going to lose all my souls" and then brandished out of thin air a shield and an axe.

Way better than a Tetris dream.

Edited by Sno

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