I am now convinced that Dark Souls is the console equivalent of Mao - where you're encouraged to make up your own rules and abilities and items and everyone else just plays along with it. "Put all your points into Proofreading, then look under the white rock and you should find a '65 Stratocaster there. This is great for a Lightning build. When you see a dragon, always circle it clockwise unless it's a blue dragon and you're not wearing a fedora. Oh yeah, get the fedora at the beginning. Make sure you become human when you set yourself on fire, but that's different from Humanity, which you get when your XP gains a level."
Nute you have basically summed up my experience reading Dark Souls threads, most likely until I manage to get further in.
Good god the Stratocaster is terrible for a Proofreading build. You want the Excessively Large Tome. It's a rare drop from the enchanted librarians in The Great Library, but worth farming!
Quick, someone explain Calamity Ring to Nute! Everything becomes clear as mud once you grasped the thinking behind the inclusion of that thing.
Yeah, the Stratocaster is really good for a non-scaling elemental/faith/penguins build, but it's just not good for a high-proofreading build; you're effectively wasting all of the points you put into proofreading beyond 24.
It's a ring, right, that doubles the damage you take from all sources(except possibly falling damage, I think). That's it. That's all it does. Oh, and it puts a nifty glowing Eye of Sauron floating over your head.
Okay, so assuming you have someone who thinks this all sounds pretty cool but has played all of five minutes of Demonseses' Soul's and hated it (I believe my exact words were along the lines of "Why this fuck can't even fucking the fuck when I try to... FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!" in regards to the whole "don't move, this might kill you. DON'T STAND STILL YOU IDIOT!" difficulty curve) - what I have gleaned so far about Dark Souls: - A number of folks who aren't complete berks included it on their Game Of The Year list. So obviously it's likely to have some redeeming qualities. - It appears to be a third-person run around and slash things for gold souls game with RPG elements like levels, stats, and inventory management. - Since it includes the word Souls in the title, I am assuming it is Balls Hard. - You can be dead but then spend humanity to sit by a fire and become alive but when you are alive other people can sneak up on you and kill you and take your shit. - There is a place called the Undead Parish which I think is a district of New Orleans. - If it has a tail, chop it off because that is where the cool loot is kept. - What the hell are you doing playing with a mouse and keyboard? So, speaking to someone who hasn't played it, sell me on the game from a grassroots level. Why is it awesome?
It isn't. We've said this a lot but if anyone still thinks this we haven't said it enough: it's not that hard. The reason people think it's hard is because the dopey marketing tells them it's hard and does them a huge disservice in the process. All that's required to understand Dark Souls is to understand that dying is not a fail state. Do you die a lot? Yes. Does that mean the game is hard? No, not really, because dying is one of the game mechanics. Most games require you to complete the game with no deaths on record, so to speak, by forcing you to reload your save when you die. Dark Souls very gently returns you to the last checkpoint, penalizes you very little, and even lets you keep whatever items you found in the interim. The latter seems a lot less punishingly difficult to me. I think the problem with this question is that it's hard to answer without just gushing for fifty minutes. So I'm going to try something new. Here are three simple reasons Dark Souls is awesome: 1. It features the best melee combat system in any game. 2. The level design is immaculate. 3. It allows you to explore its intricate, deep, and thoughtful mechanics and story for yourself, rather than parading you through a series of tutorials and cutscenes that make you feel like the developer is playing the game for you.
Cool. Cool cool cool. All right, your points - I demand exposition! What other games would you compare it to? Is it more of a Dynasty Warriors run-and-slash by the hundreds, or a block-parry-slash-smash system like Bushido Blade and other fighting games? Or something entirely different? I By level design, do you mean how to get from point A to point B, or that things flow together logically and make sense, or that it's just visually stunning? That much I've heard, because reading the Wikipedia entry on the backstory/plot had me going "Holy shit this is Space Mutiny levels of bad. Like, RA Salvatore levels of bad. It almost hits Richard Knaak levels of incredulity."
Dude. You're expecting a better-than-shitty-fanfiction level of writing from a Wikipedia entry about a game's lore?
And I quote: Blighttown. Kingseeker Frampt. THE DARKSIGN. Gravelord Nito? I would almost assume this is written by the guys from Penny Arcade as satire.
Note: I do not equate "ridiculous story" with "bad game". I just did a Let's Play for a tactical combat game featuring powered mechasuits in WWII, for chrissake.
The names are fairly ridiculous, I'll give you that, but the lore as presented, subtle as it is, does do a good job of making it seem like a cohesive world with a thoroughly planned out backstory and characters' relations to each other and so on. Sure, some fairly preposterous events take place, but it makes no bones about being a fantasy setting, for all that the architecture, weapon/armour design and such seem pretty well grounded in reality(or at least plausibility) for the most part. Obviously inherently magical weaponry aside, of course.
So, going to my all-purpose dependable source of "Is it awesome" - TVTropes - I find the following in their Dark Souls entry: What.
Bushido Blade is a not-bad analogue I guess, although there are hit points and you deal certain amounts of damage and stuff, so not in that sense. I guess it's kind of like a slower-paced God of War, maybe? I don't know... it's really hard to say, because it draws elements from a lot of different games of a lot of different kinds and mixes them with its own concepts of weight and so forth. It really has to be experienced, I think. Most of the areas in the game are very well-done visually, but I'm talking about the gameplay: the layout of the levels, the way the enemies inhabit them, the way you progress through them, the sheer amount of variety among them, and finally the way they all fit together into a cohesive world.
There's a type of demon that has a butt stomp move, and you fight three of them over the course of the game. And then there's one other one. BUTT STOMPZ!
To be fair, those names seem somewhat less silly when you spread them out over a hundred hours of gameplay than when you read them in a Wikipedia article.
Very cool. And so someone tried to explain how it worked in Demo'ns Soul's - what is up with the whole online-but-not-really interaction with other players? How does that work?
- Sometimes you see brief glimpses of seethrough "ghosts" of other players running around in the same area as you. These are real players, and can give you hints of what you might encounter further on. - Sometimes you'll see blood puddles on the ground left by other players when they've died near that spot. If you activate it, you'll see that player's ghostly image replay a few seconds of their gameplay up 'til their death. This can also be useful to see hidden traps/enemies just out of sight, etc. - If you're in human form(i.e. you've used a Humanity at a bonfire to "reverse hollowing" and go from dried-up prune looking to human looking), if you're in an area where you haven't killed the boss yet you may see glowing white or golden symbols on the ground. When you touch them, you'll see a transparent image of the player who's left the symbol, and you'll be able to summon them to help you through the level and fight the boss. - You can also, regardless of whether you're in human or hollow form, leave your own symbol for other players to see. If they choose to summon you, you're transported into their world and can help them through their level, getting a share of souls for each enemy killed as well as souls plus humanity if you help kill the boss. This is done through an item that Solaire of Astora will give you when you first encounter him. (You can summon other players when you're in human form even if you don't have the item yet.) - If you're in human form, you may also be invaded by other players. This means that you get a message on your screen saying "Dark spirit so and so has invaded!" or "Spirit of vengeance soandso has invaded!". These are players who've either used a certain item attainable through membership of a certain covenant(a player faction, of sorts) or a consumable item to invade. Their task is to kill you. If they do, they get a certain amount of souls and one humanity. If you're killed by an invader, you'll pop up in hollow form near the last bonfire you rested at. You won't actually lose any souls or humanity unless you fail to make it back to the spot where you were killed to pick up your bloodstain. - There are also glowy orange messages that show up on the ground now and then. Most often, these have been left by other players(through the use of another item, which you can buy for cheap off a merchant in one of the first areas you get to after the asylum), but can also occasionally(very, very occasionally) be developer messages. They can help or hinder, depending on player inclination. Some warn you of a trap ahead, some exhort you to jump off a cliff.
If you're human you can be invaded by other players. They'll kill you, but you won't 'lose your stuff.' It'll be like any other death in that you'll have to trek back to your bloodstain to get your souls back. When you're human you'll be allowed to summon players for help, usually for bosses, but also for invaders. There are secondary interactions via messages, or bloodstains, ghosting (not enough IMO), miracles or estus flask use.
Yes, basically. You choose yourself whether you want to co-op, but by so doing you leave yourself open for PvP. There's one mitigating factor, though: if you've been killed in PvP, there's a window of... I think ten or fifteen minutes, but don't quote me on that, in which you cannot be invaded again(unless you use an item that's been put in the game specifically for people who want to be invaded, that is).
You're also at risk of PvP when you just kindle a bonfire, which is an important aspect even in the single-player game. It's only kind of like that. Yes, you'll be playing single-player most of the time, but you're always interacting with other players in subtle ways, even ways you don't notice, and the multiplayer encroaches on the single-player at sometimes unexpected times. It's certainly nothing like choosing "multiplayer" instead of "single player" from the main menu.
I hope you play this. I hope, when you reach the bottom of Blighttown for the first time, that you will remember making jokes about it. Don't listen to to what anyone says, just go the Traditional Way, once. It's probably my favorite "level" design-wise ever. As in ever. You will never show mercy to anyone with a blowpipe ever again.
Well, the framerate issues are undeniable, but apart from those I think Blighttown is a great level. That level is Dark Souls as far as I'm concerned: super-hard the first time and trivial on other times, atmospheric as hell, great story lurking beneath the surface, and tons of out of the way stuff for you to find if you look for it.
I haven't had ANY framerate issues in Blighttown (or anywhere else) actually. Isn't that a console-only thing? And I agree that Blighttown is the essence of Dark Souls for me. Especially when you finally reach the bottom and try to run through the swamp.
As an addendum to the "it's hard" misconception, if I like it, and can actually play it, it's not hard. I suck at most games. It's really a matter of recalibrating how you approach a game. Dark Souls turns a lot of your video game expectations on their side. It does this by not holding your hand. It could easily do things like color code various monsters, give you waypoints, or a map, but it doesn't and is better for it.
Indeed, I have gotten invaded and killed in the short window after re-humanizing but BEFORE actually kindling. Oh, you wanted to stay in the menu? DARK SOULS
Bushido Blade crossed with Mount & Blade, maybe? Very tactile blocking and weapon heft. All three. I don't think there's any real "filler" in the game; just about every space is unique and memorable. The layouts are mostly sensible and almost always when you look back you'll find a new way two (or more) elements tie together that you just didn't have the vantage to realize. Those realizations are almost breathtaking.
Regarding 'no filler': something I found myself admiring very early on is how varied and characterful each encounter is made without any kind of special scripting. The enemies all have their behaviours and then the situation is set up just by carefully positioning them and sculpting the environment to manipulate when and how they see you. For example: On the first real level, there is a short bridge. When you approach it, three enemies standing on a nearby rooftop see you and start throwing down firebombs. To cross the bridge safely, you have to run across it and into the room on the other side without stopping. You can see an enemy at the far corner of that room as you're running across the bridge, but as you pass through the doorway out of the firebomb rain, you see another one to your right, and he sees you. But before you can do anything about that one, another enemy runs in to the room on your left, and attacks you. That enemy wasn't scripted to run in at that moment. He was just carefully positioned in a nearby outside area so that he would glimpse you as you ran across the bridge. So. Do you back away from the surprise attacker, stepping back into the firebomb firing range? Do you hit immediately hit him with your weapon from a running leap to interrupt him, then try to turn and block in time to catch the right guy's blow? Do you roll past him as he lunges, then execute him from behind as he recovers from his miss, but in so doing catch the attention of the enemy in the shadows on the far side of the room? Beating that room requires you to become confident enough with the combat system to aggressively take on multiple enemies at once, without retreating. It requires you to come up with and execute a plan. It will almost undoubtedly kill you the first time you go in there, but that's ok, because there's a bonfire just before it. And that is on the first level. It is the fourth encounter after stepping out of the tutorial, and all of the ones before it had just as many tricks and surprises.
... or you pick up your bow, shoot the firebombers in the face, shoot the soldier behind the door to make him run out to get you, stab him, shoot the axe-wielding warrior in the face, casually waltz over the bridge and into the room where now only one enemy awaits.
Good. Now don't forget to press "A" to "Nestle in coffin" when it prompts you. (I'm not making that up.)
Things I have been murdered by (so far) in Dark Souls: - A big fat-ass demon in the tutorial - Something in a cave in the Valley of Drakes - A dragon in the Valley of Drakes - A skeleton who followed me from the graveyard back to the kindling fire The funniest so far was the dragon. I slowly inched up toward it along a ledge, not knowing quite what it was. I saw the claws and the head and two corpses in front of it. I said, "Oh hey that's clearly a dragon and it looks dead and that's on purpose and this is without a doubt some kind of trap." Then I thought...well, maybe I can just run in and grab the corpses then book it DEAD. ETA: I have no idea what I'm doing. I started as a warrior. Would it be better for me to restart and go with something ranged?
A warrior is as good as anything really, focusing on good armor and a shield and raising your vitality is one of the most straightforward ways to play the game. Mostly it just sounds like you need to go the right direction. Which I won't spoil for you if you still feel like exploring as that's part of the fun, but if you ever do get stuck on that just pop in here and ask and someone will point you the way.
This is as good an example of any of the attitude you need to adopt towards death. You're telling this story as though it's an embarrassing failure, but in fact you did that exactly right: the idea there is for you to go in as a brand new character, snarf up the loot, and in all likelihood get killed. Congratulations on your awesome shield and a sword you probably won't use. Depends on how far along you are. I always recommend that people start as pyromancer because you can find good armor, shields, and weapons very early on anyway but you can't find the pyromancy flame until a little later on. I would say try the "right" path forward first and see if you're having trouble. If you do start over, it will probably surprise you how quickly you get back to where you are. Way back when in fact, I scrapped my first character (a sorcerer) to restart as a pyromancer based on Lizard_King 's advice and I never regretted it. Just make sure you do the thing with that dragon again. It's an early game power play!
thinking about making a "no, this game is NOT masocore, you stupid bastard" youtube video, just to practice video editing itself.
