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El Capitano Gatisto 11-09-2011 08:08 PM

Dark Souls
 
Anyone else got it?

I basically played Demon Souls right up until Dark Souls came out because I still hadn't done everything in the game and wanted to try out different character builds so I was a big fan of the predecessor. I've had this one since release and poured an unhealthy amount of time into it, it's ridiculously absorbing (can't see any reason to buy Skyrim or MW3 until I'm bored of this).

I'm pretty close to the end of my first run through but I can see myself going NG+ or starting out a new character so I can use some of the items that I haven't levelled up enough for this time round. I think I love both games because of the near lack of any kind of story, it's basically just running around in a constant state of tension, trying to chip away at the difficulty of the game.

The online multiplayer is inspired, I think, in terms of the co-op set-up and the invasion/duelling, although Dark Souls has toned down the invading a fair bit, which is disappointing.

RoXer 11-09-2011 08:13 PM

Requiem got it and has been telling me about it. I should be getting it in maybe a month or so.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-09-2011 08:26 PM

Good. Start off as the character who has nothing but a big club and a leather pouch over his naked bollocks. I wish I'd done that.

G 11-09-2011 08:30 PM

I'm next in line for this. Not sure if I will last though. I get frustrated easily and will probably move on if I get stuck and keep dying over and over at the same spot. I am excited to try it out, though.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-09-2011 08:36 PM

That could be a problem, I would urge you to stick with it though. The game doesn't fuck you over, you just have to be careful and a bit circumspect. You can't steam in and beat the shit out of enemies and expect to come out alive. The game isn't linear, so you can go to really tough parts of it right from the beginning, but the idea is to wander around getting levelled up and new items that chip away at the difficulty bit by bit.

The co-op is a big help in getting past tough spots.

The Destroyer 11-09-2011 09:06 PM

Sounds like it's the sort of game that would absolutely infuriate me. I've got a lot on my plate gaming wise right now, but I might give it a chance if I see it cheap a bit further down the line.

Requiem 11-10-2011 01:15 AM

Friend and I have been trying to play this. Haven't done much on my own but I have a feeling I would get more done.

We are pretty much just getting rocked at parts and are already tired of going through an area over and over again. Seems like the game WANTS us to grind and keep saving/respawning everything but idk if I feel like it. Some parts were absolutely awesome. There were times I had to commend the developers for doing something a certain way. Still.. ugggghhh, it is disheartening at times.

Gonna play some tomorrow by myself just to see if I can focus better and really get through some places.

Funky Fly 11-10-2011 03:24 AM

I heard this was also for 360. When I eventually get a PS3 I def wanna get Demon Souls.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-10-2011 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Requiem (Post 3676666)
Friend and I have been trying to play this. Haven't done much on my own but I have a feeling I would get more done.

We are pretty much just getting rocked at parts and are already tired of going through an area over and over again. Seems like the game WANTS us to grind and keep saving/respawning everything but idk if I feel like it. Some parts were absolutely awesome. There were times I had to commend the developers for doing something a certain way. Still.. ugggghhh, it is disheartening at times.

Gonna play some tomorrow by myself just to see if I can focus better and really get through some places.

Well you do need to go to the bonfires often to level up and keep your spot in a level, but you don't have to grind if you don't want to. The combat system is pretty fair, you can beat any enemy as long as you are good enough and patient enough, but also thinking about the weapons you are using helps too. For the early game I found using a spear got me through the early parts because I could hide behind my shield, then I got the Drake Sword which smashes pretty much all the early enemies. I had to grind a bit, obviously, but didn't do any serious grinding until pretty far into the game.

The game may not be for you due to its fairly idiosyncratic style, but I think if you stick with it, it's a rewarding experience. It's a cliche to say it but it does remind me of old games, where you basically had no story, no cutscenes and you just had to keep trying to beat levels over and over. The game layout allows you to challenge an area but back out of it again if it's too difficult.

Use the wikis to help too, they contain good info. This game gives you virtually no instruction, so using the community is a big help, unless you want to play in a constant state of worry (which is good too). Lay down a soulsign to help other people, too, it's the best way to get souls and humanity and it gives you a risk-free dry run of bosses/levels. Then revive yourself and summon your own help.

The biggest thing is definitely patience, however.

#BROKEN Hasney 11-10-2011 09:04 AM

Probably pick it up when it's cheap. I didn't get on with Demon Soul's a great deal, but I also didn't play it when online, which is a game-changer I'm lead to believe.

I'd get it now, but I'm pretty stacked up until the end of the year now. Might even have to wait until after Mass Effect 3.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-10-2011 09:07 AM

Yeah you have to be online. It's unreal. The first time in Demon Souls that I was invaded by another player was incredible. It just appealed to my sense of bastardry that it was possible to go in uninvited and try to fuck up someone else's game up to your own advantage. You never know how it'll work out, the person you invade may be totally unprepared for your character build or they may be a fucking beast who one-hits you and then does a little dance as your corpse dissolves in front of them.

The co-op is great too obviously.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-10-2011 12:30 PM

On the whole invasion thing, when someone aggressively invades your game in this one you can "indict" them so their name goes into a "Book of the Guilty." Today I joined a covenant in the game which gives you a special item which, when you use it, randomly has you invade any player with their name in that book as a phantom of vengeance. It's fucking beautiful. I've spent the past hour invading these people and dealing out some reprisal for them being bastards. You get little tokens for beating them (plus some of the game's currency) that you can trade in for better weapons from the covenant. It's a guilt-free method of going in and shitting on someone else for a laugh.

Of course it's only a matter of time before I invade some guy with two other phantoms backing him up and they all kick the dung out of me.

Funky Fly 11-10-2011 03:06 PM

This game sounds so beautiful. :'(

The Destroyer 11-10-2011 03:30 PM

It sounds like a game for my inner bastard.

Requiem 11-10-2011 07:05 PM

K so on my own save file, I am doing much better. Think I have a better grasp on how this game works.

Funky Fly 11-10-2011 07:52 PM

Couldn't resist it. I came into a little extra cash and picked it up. If this is as good as you and one of my irl friends say, Skyrim might get put on the backburner less than 24 hours before it's even out.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-10-2011 09:03 PM

I'm close to the end of the game but I don't want to finish now because invading these guilty bastards is too much craic. I have a ring that turns me almost invisible (think it's gonna be patched soon to make it less dominant), so I'm running in and stabbing these bastards in the back and kicking their arses before they even know what's happening. They get a message flashing up on screen that I've invaded and most just start panicking and running for their lives.

One guy shat on me, though, he waited until I sought him out then cast a spell that turned himself invisible and proceeded to beat me to death. Can't argue with that.

I didn't know this before I started playing Demon Souls, but it's from the same developers as those who made the Tenchu games, which were my absolute favourite, alongside the Soul Reaver games, on the PS2.

Requiem 11-12-2011 12:29 AM

We started over with a new character, so that we had a game where we didn't kill the stupid merchant.

Already farther than we were, and we just got a rapier and gave it a +1 and it is rocking. So awesome because it jabs and lunges and doesn't hit a thousand fucking walls while we're fighting. Getting better at taking out those fucking Fencing Knights. We are AT the gargoyle right now. We are just able to get there regularly but we haven't tried actually fighting him. Just got killed a couple times to see what he was about.

Funky Fly 11-12-2011 01:32 AM

WTF this game gets frustrating after a while. Fun, but fucking hell.

Boomer 11-12-2011 03:19 AM

Demons Souls was such a fantastic game. I'm sad that I don't need to be buying anything right now. I'd kill to have some Dark Souls in my life.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-12-2011 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Requiem (Post 3678300)
We started over with a new character, so that we had a game where we didn't kill the stupid merchant.

Already farther than we were, and we just got a rapier and gave it a +1 and it is rocking. So awesome because it jabs and lunges and doesn't hit a thousand fucking walls while we're fighting. Getting better at taking out those fucking Fencing Knights. We are AT the gargoyle right now. We are just able to get there regularly but we haven't tried actually fighting him. Just got killed a couple times to see what he was about.

You can open up a shortcut (if you haven't already) that by-passes the whole level to get to the gargoyles, it's the lift at the back if the church. It goes directly from the Firelink Shrine to the church. Also there's a bonfire opposite the side entrance to the church in a room at the end of a long lane to another building. That means you don't have to keep fighting your way through the entire level over and over. As frustrating as the game can be, you measure your progress by opening up these shortcuts to make life much easier. I didn't "get" Demon Souls at first until I realised that you just have to be very careful until you open up these shortcuts (or bonfires in this game).

If you can revive yourself to human form also, you can summon Knight Solaire (NPC) to help you with the Gargoyles if you spoke to him before, plus other online players obviously. That makes the fight a lot easier.

Just realised if you've upgraded a weapon then you've obviously found the second bonfire.

Requiem 11-12-2011 12:59 PM

Is Solaire the guy you meet before the bridge with the red dragon? Or is he the knight you rescue from the jail cell right before the gargoyles?

Requiem 11-12-2011 01:09 PM

Also, is it worth it taking the time to kill the Black Knights now? Or are they a huge pain in the ass and not worth it till you get better? We tried each of the ones we've come in contact with and they demolished us every time.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-12-2011 02:30 PM

Yeah Solaire is the guy before the dragon, he leaves a summon sign before the Gargoyles if you are in human form and will help with the fight.

The knight you rescued is Lautrec, I rescued him too but what you probably should have done is leave him there or kill him because he's actually a bastard. He goes back to the Firelink Shrine and sits at the part below it on the side of the mountain across from the silent woman in the cell who upgrades your Estus flasks. He kills her eventually while you're out adventuring and leaves, but it shuts off the bonfire at the Firelink Shrine. You get to take revenge on him later in the game and get the soul back off him so you can revive the woman (although I used her soul to upgrade my Estus flask and now the Firelink Shrine bonfire is gone forever).

As for the Black Knights, basically in this game you can beat any enemy at any point if you're good enough and/or patient enough at the combat, depending on your tactics. I beat them using the Drake Sword and a good shield and just avoiding their heavy attacks. You can't expect to beat anyone in this game if you take hits, but conversely if you avoid getting hit (or have the correct armour/shields) you can beat anyone. Stamina is the most important thing in the combat, probably even more important than high HP. Keep an eye on your stamina and remember that keeping your shield up slows recovery, while having low stamina means that you can get stunlocked or take damage even while blocking.

It's worth killing them because they drop their weapons and, if you have the stats to use them, they're pretty good. Get yourself the Drake Sword by buying a bow and 50-100 arrows off the first merchant, then shooting the dragon's tale from beneath the bridge. It takes about 10-15 minutes to do, but be patient and just keep hitting the tale with arrows and eventually it drops off and gives you the Drake Sword, which will one-hit the majority of the early enemies and make fighting the Black Knights much easier.

Requiem 11-12-2011 04:17 PM

We got the drake sword but we're not a strength based character. We use dex/advanced weapons so the drake sword is useless to us. :( Didn't know if it was worth it to even pump up Str right now if we're not going to bother with it at the higher levels anyways due to wanting to specialize more.

Requiem 11-12-2011 04:18 PM

Also, we upgraded our Estus Flasks already using the soul we got from the HUGE black knight in the Parish.

Requiem 11-12-2011 04:24 PM

Also, am I understanding 'equipment load/how fast you move' correctly? Keep it at half of your equip load and you will move quickly? Does this affect how fast you attack and such, or is that just Dex? Or does Dex even affect your attack speed? Just not sure on the intricacies of the game and how certain things affect you.

I know that by keeping your equip load under half of its max, you move quickly. That's how we got across the bridge with the red dragon. Just took off our armor and BOOKED IT to the stairway. But I'm not sure how movement works with everything else.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-12-2011 04:25 PM

I would get Strength up to at least 20 so you can use some equipment. I went for a melee build myself, so Strength/Dexterity basically both need to be upgraded to a certain extent to be able to wield stuff. Endurance is also very important. You may struggle a bit early game if you're focusing on Dexterity, the Eastern style swords (uchigatana, scimitar, falchion) get the best bonuses from Dexterity so get one of those and upgrade to increase the damage bonus.

I largely ignored Intelligence and Faith, as you can use Pyromancy spells without those, but there are some incredible spells if you focus on either of those (impossible to do both).

The Estus flasks can be upgraded to +8 I think, there are other NPCs that can upgrade them, though so it's no biggie when Lautrec murders the silent woman.

Requiem 11-12-2011 04:30 PM

Hmm, alright we will bump our Strength up a bit then. Yeah we have definitely made things harder on ourselves I think, but I think that's sort of the idea of this game.. they don't tell you these things and you just kind of have to figure out how to best approach it on your own. We pretty much only have our smartphones with which to look up information on, as he doesn't have internet at his place. So we typically don't rely on guides as much as I would like. It also takes away the online aspect of player hints and such.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-12-2011 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Requiem (Post 3678654)
Also, am I understanding 'equipment load/how fast you move' correctly? Keep it at half of your equip load and you will move quickly? Does this affect how fast you attack and such, or is that just Dex? Or does Dex even affect your attack speed? Just not sure on the intricacies of the game and how certain things affect you.

I know that by keeping your equip load under half of its max, you move quickly. That's how we got across the bridge with the red dragon. Just took off our armor and BOOKED IT to the stairway. But I'm not sure how movement works with everything else.

Equipment load affects your running speed, endurance loss/recovery and your rolling speed. If you have over 50% equip burden your roll becomes basically a fat fall. But strong armour gives you poise, which means enemies cannot interrupt your attacks.

I'm not sure what effects attack speed to be honest, obviously the size of the weapon is a big thing, I think maybe that the major stat for each weapon class probably affects how well you can use it in terms of attack speed and damage eg. if you have a greatsword, strength will improve attack speed, if you have a falchion then dexterity will.

With bosses sometimes it makes more sense to just put on your lightest armour and evade them. In fact, in Demon Souls I always used the lightest armour possible because it's way better in these games to avoid getting hit entirely (and to have a good shield).

El Capitano Gatisto 11-12-2011 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Requiem (Post 3678661)
Hmm, alright we will bump our Strength up a bit then. Yeah we have definitely made things harder on ourselves I think, but I think that's sort of the idea of this game.. they don't tell you these things and you just kind of have to figure out how to best approach it on your own. We pretty much only have our smartphones with which to look up information on, as he doesn't have internet at his place. So we typically don't rely on guides as much as I would like. It also takes away the online aspect of player hints and such.

I'd highly recommend playing it online yourself then, you miss out a major part of the game if you don't. The very best way to grind souls and humanity is by helping out other players, as it's completely risk-free, plus it lets you preview levels/bosses.

Requiem 11-13-2011 02:28 AM

Just made some massive progress. Well, massive for us at least. We tried the gargoyles a few times and failed, so we decided to just grind out some levels for enough strength to use the drake sword. Went in and ANNIHILATED both gargoyles first try. Rang the bell, and then went through opening up a crap ton of passages that connected a lot of areas. Rescued the guy down in the basement and found the demon with the dogs.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-13-2011 08:12 AM

That's basically what this game is about. It's not necessarily incredibly hard, it's just about finding the right gear and the right strategy to get through the levels and getting the shortcuts opened.

The Capra demon gives a lot of people serious trouble early in the game (level 20 or so). There's a stage later on where you have to fight 6 of them.

Funky Fly 11-13-2011 02:16 PM

K, I took that deprived guy because he had the most even stats and I figured I could test out what works and what doesn't early on... I get the feeling armour makes an incredible difference in this game.

Requiem 11-13-2011 02:40 PM

It's alright, because armor starts dropping pretty regularly. Not GOOD armor, mind you. But it is not terrible.

Also ECG, is there a place where I'll get to sell items for souls later on? Because my inventory is FLOODED with shit I don't need.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-13-2011 04:21 PM

Yeah...sort of. First of all, you can just drop stuff you don't want. Go to your inventory and select the item and it should give you an option to just drop it. You can also purchase a "bottomless box" from the blacksmith (I think) to transfer stuff you want to keep but don't want clogging up your inventory. Later on in the game, a giant talking snake appears at the Firelink Shrine where the crow is and you can feed him unwanted items for a very minor amount of souls.

Requiem 11-13-2011 05:10 PM

The blacksmith to the right of the parish? That would come in handy. Wanted to keep pretty much everything since there's no limit to how much we can hold. Figured eventually it would come in handy even if it does only give a small amount. It might add up with a good 75 items or so.

Requiem 11-13-2011 05:10 PM

Also, have beat 2 black knights now as of being able to use the drake sword. Definitely makes things SOOOO much easier.

El Capitano Gatisto 11-14-2011 10:53 AM

It does but that doesn't last long, it becomes underpowered for baddies pretty quickly. Don't bother upgrading it because there's basically no return in doing so, the damage increase is minimal. Keep any souls you pick up from bosses, don't be tempted to use them to bank currency souls to boost your levels because you can make pretty nifty weapons out of them later in the game that come in very handy.

Requiem 12-04-2011 03:49 PM

So we're in our 40's I think, and we're in Anor Londo. We left the Demon Ruins and decided to come back later (I did kill all 7 of the taurus demons before leaving though). So we made our way back up, and now we've actually upgraded the shit out of our main weapon. Have a +10 Uchigatana. Pretty great with the bleed effect. Have contemplated grinding some titanite shards just so we can do upgrades all around.

Not sure what has the best drop rate of titanite shards (I could look it up I'm sure) though.


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