Dark Souls(Demon's Souls successor)

[Bjorn]

I've already done Tomb of the Giants, that was quite rapid: finished off that boss today. The crystal dragon seems like it'll be a pain since it's hard to get in melee range. Although I only fought it once then got stuck in prison, so the fight may change for all I know.

 

That's an unwinnable fight, the only one in the game.  Even the tutorial boss is technically able to be defeated in the very first encounter, though it takes a great deal of skill and experience (or taking the black bombs as a gift). 

[Griddlelol]

Alright, I thought as much. 

 

I'll probably skip the DLC and come back to it later. I really want to finish the game but I'm running out of time to play pretty rapidly, and I'll be really annoyed at myself if I get this far and stop due to lack of time and frustration at not retaining the necessary skills.

[N1njaSquirrel]

There's either a crystal or magic ember in the crystal caves (can't remember which) which requires you to navigate a very confusing invisible path past the hole where the 3 crystal lizards are, which is probably worth your time. Online is your friend here, as people write messages on the invisible walkways.

 

Seath was a terrifying prospect when I first encountered him, but I do think he's one of the most beautiful looking bosses in the game, especially on the PC port.

[Griddlelol]

unfortunately GFWL disconnects after 8 minutes exactly, every time I play. It's really annoying!

[Bjorn]

Now I really want this mod for DS2, since it has amazing fist weapons.  The DS mod should have been applied to the Crystal Ring Shield though, since it has a ranged/thrown attack. 

 

[Dewar]

Alright, I thought as much. 

 

I'll probably skip the DLC and come back to it later. I really want to finish the game but I'm running out of time to play pretty rapidly, and I'll be really annoyed at myself if I get this far and stop due to lack of time and frustration at not retaining the necessary skills.

 

I really think the DLC is the best area in the game, and if you beat the game you'll have to play NG+ all the way to the Lord Vessel to get there, but it's your call.

[Griddlelol]

You can't continue after beating the game? It immediately sends you to NG+? That's a bummer, I'll definitely do the DLC before I finish then - just assumed I'd be able to explore a bit after I killed the final boss.

I keep telling myself I'm not going to play, but I'll probably have another crack at the cyrstal cave tonight and maybe in the morning before my train. It's either that or Titanfall...my antithesis to Dark Souls that I use to take a break when I die 100 times on trash mobs. 

 

Edit:

 

Actually that makes me think...I've died far more to trash or level design than I have to bosses. Maybe it's because I take the bosses seriously, or maybe it's because I try to rush through the trash when I figure out my boss strategy for the first time. Anyone else experience this? I get excited about bosses, and I dread the trash rather than finding it benign.

[Bjorn]

I'm so sorry....Dark Souls erotic fan fiction (it's brilliant, in its own special way):

[Griddlelol]

"Like Madonna's forearms."

 

"Balls deep in sorrowful lamentation"

 

Those descriptions are fantastic.

 

Also: I killed Seath! Now where is that last yellow gate that was removed...

[Roderick]

Wow, that Captain America mod! Looks fantastic!

[Bjorn]

"Like Madonna's forearms."

 

"Balls deep in sorrowful lamentation"

 

Those descriptions are fantastic.

 

Also: I killed Seath! Now where is that last yellow gate that was removed...

 

Yeah, who knew you could make Dark Souls erotica feel so natural to the world.

 

 

Actually that makes me think...I've died far more to trash or level design than I have to bosses. Maybe it's because I take the bosses seriously, or maybe it's because I try to rush through the trash when I figure out my boss strategy for the first time. Anyone else experience this? I get excited about bosses, and I dread the trash rather than finding it benign.

 

I'd say that in all 3 Souls games, I've been far more likely to die to the environment or trash than I have to bosses.  I rarely take an ill advised or impatient move against a boss, but I will against regular enemies all the time. 

[JonCole]

For me, whenever I roll into a boss fight my body and mind crank up to a 10, taking in every bit of detail and making split-second critical decisions that keep me alive. When I'm just going through the environment, a triumph against a seemingly difficult mob of enemies might swing my attitude to careless superiority and I can get rushed and stunlocked by a bunch of idiot hollows.

[Griddlelol]

I think the worst is when you encounter a difficult trash mob for the second time. After playing super cautiously the first time and taking no damage, I always run in with the cavalier attitude of "I know this guy's moves now." Generally ends in death.

Sometimes I go for a parry, get it, feel like a boss, then assume I'm king of parries only to die on the next guy because I keep getting the timing wrong.

 

 

Also: Jon and Gormongous, I'm curious to know where you are right now. 

 

For those playing DS2, does it use GFWL? I'd like to actually experience the online components but with that terrible service, it's not likely to happen in this game.

[Bjorn]

For those playing DS2, does it use GFWL? I'd like to actually experience the online components but with that terrible service, it's not likely to happen in this game.

 

Its not out on PC yet, 9 more days.  It's not using GFWL and is going to use dedicated servers instead of a P2P network like DS1 (and I think Steamworks? not sure).  So yeah, online should be a 1000 times better.  I'm playing the PS3 version until the PC version comes out, and the online on it has been much better than the online on both PS3 and PC for DS1.

[Griddlelol]

DeS online was real janky. I remember getting into major lag fights where just swinging a large sword or halbred randomly was pretty much the only effective strategy. Any sort of planned attack would just lag out.

I really enjoyed helping people out at bosses though. I'm not a big fan of games that force multiplayer on you (like Journey - great game but I had a bad forced multiplayer experience as well as a great one) but I love that souls games let you help people if they want it! What do you get from helping out in DS1/2? In DeS you got your humanity back and so more HP etc, is there any incentive to help out now?

[Gormongous]

Also: Jon and Gormongous, I'm curious to know where you are right now.

 

Still stalled right before the Capra Demon. I'm level 31, wearing the full Balder set with the Gargoyle Helm, Drake Sword, and Pyromancy Flame. I'm honestly just stalling, thinking that I'll give myself an afternoon during Easter weekend to figure him out.

 

I actually feel the opposite of most of you guys. I can navigate trash quite easily, but I always choke on bosses something terrible. Fighting Havel, seven out of twelve times my death was because I tapped the roll button twice and would roll behind Havel and then back in front of him, just in time to get hit.

[Bjorn]

DeS online was real janky. I remember getting into major lag fights where just swinging a large sword or halbred randomly was pretty much the only effective strategy. Any sort of planned attack would just lag out.

I really enjoyed helping people out at bosses though. I'm not a big fan of games that force multiplayer on you (like Journey - great game but I had a bad forced multiplayer experience as well as a great one) but I love that souls games let you help people if they want it! What do you get from helping out in DS1/2? In DeS you got your humanity back and so more HP etc, is there any incentive to help out now?

 

I'm personally a huge fan of the total Souls package, PvP, co-op and single.  I love the rush of getting invaded, but appreciate that not everyone wants that.  I'm actually a bit disappointed by the lack of invasions in DS2 so far.  They really curtailed invading in NG by two different methods, so most of that action is in NG+ now.  

 

As for co-oping, they just fixed the humanity reward in the most recent patch.  It was broken and completely random, sometimes you would turn fully human, other times get nothing.  In DS2, you slowly hollow, losing 5 percent or so of your max health with every death.  Successfully co-oping restores one step of that now.  Which there are items that instantly and fully restore you to human as well, but you can co-op if you are low or want to horde those. 

 

There are also several items you can get, including covenant rewards and stones you can trade to a particular NPC for various items.  There are 2 white summon stones as well now.  The regular white stone acts like normal, you get summoned in for a long duration, can help clear an entire area, etc.  The Small White Stone only summons you for a max of 5 minutes, and that gets cut down for each kill, then you get a reward when the time is up.  This turns out to be surprisingly useful when you just want help to clear out one bottleneck, but don't want an escort for the entire level.  I both summon from and use the small stone a lot. 

[Dewar]

DS1 turns you human and gives you some souls when you successfuly co-op. If you are in a certain covenant it also rewards you with items to gain rank in that covenant.

[JonCole]

Like I said I got past the Capra Demon and now I've committed to putting aside the Drake Sword. I did some farming post-Capra and got my Longsword to +5, along with my Zweihander to +2 though I'm still 4 Str away from being able to use it 1-handed.

 

I decided to take a shot at the Titanite Demon near Andre, took me six tries but I managed to take it down. I moved into the Darkwood Gardens and got to the Bonfire, then cleared out the area with all the Golems and scary plants. I got to the boss door and decided to head back, because I had 6k souls that I didn't want to waste on getting smoked by an unfamiliar boss. I kinda want to farm souls from that area, it would only take a handful of runs to get my needed Str to switch to the Zweihander.

 

I got the Elite Knight Set from there, I still don't have a good enough feel for how it compares to my partial Leather/Balder Set. 

[cyrix]

decided to start a new character with a starting class I have never used before.

Went cleric to try out the faith stuff.

Man nothing feels as good as going back in with all your experience, and just STOMPING the capra demon.
That guy can F right off. Him and his dogs.

That said, I'm down in the swamp now (skipped b-town #masterkey4lyfe) and I'm kinda losing steam, not really sure where to take this character. 
I've got Astora's straight sword +3, and I joined the sunbros so I have the lightning spear miracle.
Not really sure where to go weapon and armor wise though, ASS (heh) is starting to feel a bit meh and just divining a claymore or something i have used a bunch before seems kinda boring.
Anyway, anybody have any thoughts?

Oh almost forgot, i had a run in with a helpful invader yesterday. He joined my game in darkroot basin just as i was killing the hydra, but i had already taken out havel as well so we were just kinda stuck in an empty fog gated area we just kinda ran around for a while not talking (dumb on my part, forgot about the recent player thing on GFWL i should have just told him.) until it became apparent what was going on. So he just used the shrug gesture, and did a running jump off a cliff. It was pretty awesome, gave me like 10k souls and some humanity.

[Griddlelol]

I'm personally a huge fan of the total Souls package, PvP, co-op and single.  

 

I really like the idea of PvP, just never had a good experience with it. Being in the UK and importing DeS from the US meant all the invaders/invadees I had would just teleport around, I expect I did to them too. 

How have they curbed invasions in DS2? Getting invaded was always a rush. It's like a boss battle that can happen any time. 

[N1njaSquirrel]

In DaS2, you can get invaded when you are hollow. However, after you are invaded (it's only happened to me a couple of times) there is a grace period where you won't get invaded at all. Also, there is no red eye orb, just a cracked red eye orb, so the number of invasions you can do is limited, cutting down the number of invaders.

 

There are also a lot more NPC invaders.

 

I don't know if there's level banding or not in DaS2 like there was in DaS. In DaS the summon/invade levels work out at something like 20% your level + 5 (or 10) levels above and below your level, so if you're level 20, you can summon/invade people between levels 13 - 27.

[Bjorn]

Yeah, Cracked Red (and Blue for invading sinners) Orbs are now a limited resources on NG.  You can farm them, or you can earn them dueling in dedicated arenas for each Covenant, but neither is so fast that it's going to let someone have a huge stockpile easily.  Once you're on NG+ you can buy unlimited Orbs from the respective covenant leaders.

 

Then there is Soul Memory, which is the total amount of Souls you have earned with that character.  You only match up with people who are within a certain range of your Soul Memory, though that range increases as the total goes up.  This is to combat experienced people remaining low level and preying on new characters while wielding high level gear. 

 

Besides being invaded while being Hollow, you can also be invaded after clearing the boss of an area.  There are basically no conditions anymore under which you can't be invaded, except for being in areas that are exempt from all invasions/summons.  But I've taken one character well into NG+, and have another character about halfway through NG, and I have only been invaded a handful of times total (not counting the dedicated PvP areas where invasions happen constantly).  My character that is still in NG has never been invaded.

 

Once the PC version drops, I'm thinking that my first character will be a dedicated invader, just to let people have the rush of getting invaded.

[Dewar]

Like I said I got past the Capra Demon and now I've committed to putting aside the Drake Sword. I did some farming post-Capra and got my Longsword to +5, along with my Zweihander to +2 though I'm still 4 Str away from being able to use it 1-handed.

 

I decided to take a shot at the Titanite Demon near Andre, took me six tries but I managed to take it down. I moved into the Darkwood Gardens and got to the Bonfire, then cleared out the area with all the Golems and scary plants. I got to the boss door and decided to head back, because I had 6k souls that I didn't want to waste on getting smoked by an unfamiliar boss. I kinda want to farm souls from that area, it would only take a handful of runs to get my needed Str to switch to the Zweihander.

 

I got the Elite Knight Set from there, I still don't have a good enough feel for how it compares to my partial Leather/Balder Set. 

 

I farmed up 30k souls in that area during my first playthrough to get the key to the magic door as well as a sorcery ring. Personally, I just ran the plants over and over again and didn't borther with the Golems.

[eot]

Some amazing Dark Souls screenshots.

Some day we'll all be playing in 4k / 8k and it'll be glorious.