Watching this speed run, I can't help but think he had a rally car-esque co-driver. "Turn right here!" "Turn block left" "Sprint forward!" "Pick up that glowy bit!" "Let the elevator go back up!" "Switch to halberd now!" "Levelup, ALL STRENGTH"
What I learned was that I could send the Firelink/New Londo lift back up. Used that last night when I ran to get the fire keeper soul down there. I had planned to homeward bone back, but as I was in the kneel and looked like I was going to go I got mobbed. Oh well. Probably worked out for the best to keep the bone and lose 344 souls.
Oh my god, that's such a lifesaver. I started doing it a few months ago and it has saved me untold hours. It almost makes me wish all the elevators worked that way.
I think someone discovered that fairly recently. Someone posted a video in this thread demonstrating it.
In my case at least, it's done exactly that - my assumption was that it really is excruciatingly challenging and is all about killing the player constantly, which just doesn't sound enjoyable to me. Turns out that impression was inaccurate, which makes me much more interested in checking this out. (Especially if it's down to $15-20 for the Xbox version, that's a no-brainer.)
Dark Souls is not difficult, it is slowly paced. Gamers are used to a much faster pace and so people will rush things and it will end poorly. Dark Souls is by and large a strategy action game, where almost none of the difficulty is in the controller skills, and most of it is in your level of knowledge about an area or foe. Almost every encounter in the game can be trivialized, and there is almost no penalty for death, and anything you might actually lose by dying repeatedly is trivial. Basically, if you are worried about something being difficult, you hit up the wiki, or this thread, and it will no longer be difficult. The most difficult part of the game is the learning; but largely that can be done without ever playing.
One thing I do like about Souls is that the designers have clearly thought about the experience of failing/dying. They acknowledge that it is expected that you will experience failure as part of the ideal journey through the game. There are games that just make you reload from your last save, sometimes not even bothering with an autosave. Where the experience of failure is just loading screens and frustration. I think that's what most people are thinking of when they recoil at the thought of a challenging game. Dark Souls is very much not like that.
That is pretty much what I'd assumed. See e.g., the first Deus Ex 3 boss fight which took me got knows how many reloads before I squeaked through it.
You'll be glad to know that not only does Dark Souls not make you keep reloading saves in frustration, it isn't even possible to reload your save.
That's interesting. Since pretty much everyone claims that it is impossible (or at least very stupid) to play Dark Souls with anything other than a controller.
I think a lot of people approach Dark Souls with this mentality, i.e. "I didn't do this just right, I have to do it again but better!", and suffer for it. Yes, if you keep banging your head against a wall it is going to suck. If there's one pieced of advice that I would give a new player is that if it feels like the game is kicking you in the balls, you're doing it wrong. That could mean a change in tactics, equipment or moving on to a different area and coming back.
Yep, you screw up, you live with your mistake, just ask me about the time I accidentally punched Andrei.
This is really helpful, thanks. That's exactly what I thought this game was like - lots of dying and reloading and dying again until you master a particular encounter that has zero room for error, which just doesn't sound enjoyable to me. Also, I appreciate you guys interrupting your regularly-scheduled conversation among experts to help educate some newbies. I'm sure I'll be back post-Christmas with a ton of obnoxious queries. Cheers!
I swear the fuck that the last time I went to Vamos he almost aggroed on me when a skeleton wheel followed me in there. OK, it's possible that I hit him in the battle, but I don't think so. I feel like the skeleton wheel hit him and he was fixing to blame me for it.
Yeah because their K+M interface decisions are really terrible. My issue with K+M was how the mouse influenced locking and made combat really terrible.
Nope. In reality if you die doing one thing, and you do that same thing again, you will die again. The solution is always to try something different. I mean, you can create an artificial difficulty wall by saying "I'm going to beat Quelagg using nothing but pyro!" but at the end of the day, you just end up looking like some fool who has been trying to tip over a car using toothpicks. It might be possible but it's not going to be fun!
I'm just gonna quote this for the new people reading the thread to learn this Goofus and Gallant lesson.
They will never be obnoxious. Helping people understand Dark Souls is a great pleasure. Also, the moment when you go from asking all the questions in this thread to answering them is one of the most thrilling Dark Souls moments of all.
I do love that. I also just realized that Adventurer #2 is carrying a crudely-drawn Drake Sword. Brilliant.
Dark souls is like a fine wine. No matter how many times you hit someone over the head with the bottle, they're not going to like it until they're too drunk to feel it anymore.
Which the m+k mod completely solved. Mousewheel now locks on nearest target and you can even scroll to switch between them with the wheel. I think what currently holds m+k back is turning - it's a bit hard to find a sensitivity setting where you can turn facing fast enough without the vertical scroll going nuts. If that makes any sense. So I'd say that as long as you are able to lock on, it's fine. It's when you need to fight without target lock that it's inferior, as well as scrolling through menus.
I can't easily find my first post in this thread because the search only shows 200 posts... which only goes back a few weeks.
Oh it was this: In retrospect not too too bad for having had the game for about a week. I still like that I got past the Capra Demon very (well relatively) easily on my first playthrough and then got stalled forever on the Gaping Dragon of all things.
Apt. The game is very slow paced compared to pretty much everything else that is even remotely similar. The amount of controller gymnastics you have to do is virtually null. Like Demon's Souls before it, it's all about being cautious and managing the amount of heat coming your way, which sadly takes more patience then most people seem to have. I'd say it has an extremely HIGH learning curve for this reason, but that is different than flat out "this game is hard!" Once you know...you've arrived.
I am not enjoying the Oolacile Dungeon. I'm kind of pissed at The Dusk for getting into this mess, honestly.
I won't be home for a couple of hours, so I hope someone can give you a hand. Otherwise, probably around 8ish EST at best.
I have a character at 72, which I think is just within the threshold to be summoned, right? What's your steam name?
Alas, I'd have to get through the whole archives first. I guess it wouldn't take *that* long ... (famous last words).
Looks like you found it. My Live username is surplus bags, I think you need that too. Also I can gain a few levels if need be. Logging in now.
