Dark Souls

Praise The Motherfucking Sun.

It's kind of funny. Sufficiently advanced stupidity is like sufficiently advanced science; eventually, you find something you can't solve.

Hello.

Grabbed the game on Steam just today. Heard a lot of praise and, ow, people weren't kidding. It's pretty brutal right off the start. So far my causes of death were, as follows:

• Asylum Demon - twice/thrice
• Flaming barrel -> Chasm
• Hollow Sandwich - two guys up front and a guy wailing at my back from behind.
• Explosive Bombs + more crazy jumping Hollows

Any tips for a beginner that had chosen a Knight and tries more to block and less to flail(though admiteddly I'm still getting used to the controls - wasted about four black bombs that way).

grah

Your shield is your friend.

Also learn to dodge.

Oh really when?

If you have the Master Key (one of the gift choices at the start) go down the tower and kill Havel, if you can. The ring he drops increases your max equipment burden, which will then allow you to move faster and dodge more effectively.

The tutorial taught me that your shield is your best friend.

Undead Burgh taught me that if you have a bow, some arrows and good aim, hardly anything will actually fight you as you kill them.

The black knight in that area taught me that sometimes, they do fight back. And that sometimes, your shield isn't your best friend. The dodge button is.

Yes, it's worth putting a few points into Dexterity so you can use a bow.

I kinda want to experiment with having a bow as a main weapon again. I tried it out a bit in Dark Souls and Dark Souls II (though there it was more about the dual daggers). Might revisit the idea in Scholar of the First Sin.

Oh, and another bit of standard beginner advice: don't put any points into Resistance.

edited 20th Dec '14 12:37:08 PM by artfulscruff

And for goodness sakes don't consume Firekeeper souls. Give them to other firekeepers.

Should we warn about Lautrec?

edited 20th Dec '14 2:31:16 PM by artfulscruff

I also got the PC version back when it was on sale and started playing when it moved to Steam. So, did Andre always have lipsynching? I honestly can't remember ever having seen it.

For the first time ever, Gaping killed me. With his charge attack, while I was behind him. And I thought we were friends.

Beginner tipps:

• Every point put into Resistance is a wasted one.
• Start learning to parry early. One-shotting enemies with enough damage will give you+20% souls and parry/riposteis the easiest way to do so.
• With a bit of timing, humanoids can be stunlocked by repeated headshots.
• Spend your souls whenever possible.
• Hold on to the "Soul of X" items in case you need somesouls but can't risk fighting/are to lazy to respawn everything on the way.
• You'll probably meet death by bridge. Mind that this is the first farming location for souls, giving 550 per minute or so. Useful if you want a repair box, bow, etc.
• The Halberd and other weapons of that type have you stumble a bit if don't hit anything. Get some weak enemies when you try them out.

There is also this guide [1]. It's very detailed and can be used if you have a problems at a specific point in the game.Though with any guides for Dark Souls, it spoilers you somewhat.

edited 20th Dec '14 2:12:41 PM by Serox

I never found parrying to be necessary (and I wasn't much good at it, so the risk/reward wasn't worth it for me), though if you are good at it, or get good at it, then yeah, have at it.

I guess I'm gonna have to farm for a bow(or crossbow if I can get one from all these Hollow dudes) then. Bought myself a Spear, then met death by hands of Black Knight, Havel and Taurus Demon respectively.

Any advice on handling the latter?

As for parrying, I'm probably just going to find the biggest, meanest shield available and hope it's enough. Can't parry for the life of me.

grah

im so happy dark souls finally got moved over to steamworks.

i can play online again!

smaller shields are better for parrying. but for the most part, parrying is not worth the trouble. its easier to backstab and to use the shield primarily and only to avoid damage.

edited 20th Dec '14 2:46:47 PM by Tarsen

I never really used it too. But I wanted to change my playstyle a bit in this run.

And really, you can make two parry swings while the Hollows in the Burg wind up for their attacks. Better start learning it there than during the last boss fight, like I did originally.

Crossbows don't have manual aim, get a bow. I costs only 1000 souls or so.

edited 20th Dec '14 2:44:36 PM by Serox

When you get the chance to buy poison arrows, do so. And buy a lot. It's going to be your anti-frustration solution in certain points of the game.

Also, sheilds have this thing called Stability. It's a good thing to have. Helps you block more for less stamina.

Speaking of Stamina, maximum is reached at 40 Endurance. Most people discourage more than that, unless you decided on very heavy armor and weapon choices.

Pyromancy is awesome. Fling flames without any stat requirements! (Except for that 10 intelligence for that NPC to agree to sell his stuff to you.)

Kindle all the Bonfires! More kindling = more Estus = more extended lifespan = happy player.

If you get an invader, don't care about fighting "fair." They just barged in to your game. Would you give a rude person like that a chair and a warm cup of tea if they just broke your door down? No, you wouldn't.

Now if you summoned a Dark Spirit or a Dragon Spirit, do fight fairly. you invited them, don't be a douche.

Parrying is just plain broken against the CPU if you manage to do it consistently. If you can't, then backstab away.

I highly recommend learning to parry because it's the universal solution for any humanoid enemy in any kind of situation anyways.

They call it the Rumour Mill because every time one specific guy posts I definitely feel cards going from my library to my graveyard

I avoided becoming human solely because it kept me from having to deal with invaders.

In the rare times that I was human and an invader showed up, my response was to find the nearest cliff and jump. That way I can get back to what I was doing faster.

In fact, half the reason I'm still on the fence about getting DSII is because I hear that staying Hollow doesn't keep invaders away.

It doesn't. But also, NG+ and NG run on seperate servers, so you are much less likely to get invaded by anyone better than you.

And Soul Memory is a weird matchmaking system that is great for newbies, but sucks for anyone past NG.

Also, humans are prioritized over hollows in invasions.

As for the first game, I too avoided being human for the most part, untill I actually wanted a summon.

edited 20th Dec '14 5:40:48 PM by Alabaster

So I've been suggested to do the same thing as with Asylum Demon and just jump on Taurus' head for massive damage.

...the damn thing jumped on the tower. My death was swift.

Second time I just decided to cheese it and throw bombs at it until it dies. Surprisingly effective.

Then I got roasted by a dragon.

...then I think I walked off the cliff.

...sigh. Still, apart from some particularly baffling fights I'm having fun. So far.

grah

Heh, yeah, he will do that. You have to be fast once you get on top of the tower. Wait for him to raise his head to look at you and immediately jump on him, you'll get a good chunk off his lifebar.

Firebombs work, but only if you manage to hit him (I always have a lot of trouble with that), putting some Gold/Black Resins on your weapon also makes things easier (the guy, as most Demons in the game, is really weak to Fire and Lightning). You can get 3 Gold Resins from a chest in a house you open with the merchant's key.

edited 20th Dec '14 8:10:54 PM by 2Zak

They call it the Rumour Mill because every time one specific guy posts I definitely feel cards going from my library to my graveyard

Falling to ones death seems exceedingly common, judging from bloodstains.

I suppose one advice is "watch your step! No seriously, you wouldn't believe how bad the structures are in Lordran."

Camera control is your friend.

Falling to your death, while seemingly bad in Dark Souls, is nothing Compared to Demons Souls, particularly Tower of Latria.

There is nothing, NOTHING like trying to get on that last fucking elevator in the second level only to miss it and fall under it to your death. Especially given how goddamn long the level is.

Apocalypse: Dirge Of Swans.

Heh. The debug mode is hilariously fun.

There's nothing like making all the bonewheels in the catacombs friendly and teleporting them into Pinwheel's boss room.

The update appears to have broken my copy of the game. For what it's worth, I had the keyboard+mouse mod thing installed.

Direct all enquiries to Jamie B Good

According to commenters in the update post the update doesn't work with DSFix's .dll chaining feature (which I think had to be used in order to use the Keyboard+Mouse mod). It doesn't work with the FPS unlock mod, either.

edited 21st Dec '14 6:19:34 AM by 2Zak

They call it the Rumour Mill because every time one specific guy posts I definitely feel cards going from my library to my graveyard

There's an update for DS Fix that fixes the FPS unlock, but I don't know if anything's been done about the keyboard and mouse mod.