Welcome, enjoy your stay. It'll probably be easier to list things that haven't murdered you. Yup. He seems so tough the first time, but if you ever make it to NG+ you'll murder it even better. That's DS in a nutshell. OMG this is tough, but then you revisit something and you're going through like a boss. Cool, master key. The thing with the master key is it'll let you go to some areas that are too tough for your first time ever. That's OK, though, Yea, those guys are bastards at this point in the game. This is a good strategy at times. You're so early in that some of these items will be pretty helpful. When you're dying the amount of souls you are losing is negligible, but you never lose items. No, I don't think so. Eventually you'll level up enough that starting class won't matter. Like extarbags says if you restart as a pyromancer you'll get a piece of equipment much sooner than you'll come across in game. For example, you can buy a bow from a vendor in the early part and the only thing that governs that are you stats, which you'll upgrade to soon enough so there is not benefit to restarting with that piece of equipment.
The problem with this though is that if it included all of the item collection that's possible early on it would be too advanced, but if it didn't it would shunt players straight into Undead Burg without telling them to explore first, which they should absolutely do. What's needed are just the few tips we keep re-posting, I think.
I've been mulling it over in my mind. I think that I would get into exploring, like going to the skeletons first and how that a suicide run to get an item may well be worth it. It would also discuss shields and blocking/stamina. More importantly it would show how slow and deliberate the enemies are and that it's not this twitch game. All hypothetical, I don't know how I would record this video and I don't have a headset to narrate.
That's an interesting point about explaining game mechanics too. You wouldn't have to make it an exhaustive rundown like this, just show a few things (Zweihander, Dragon Crest Shield, maybe the NLR firekeeper soul) to talk about the related mechanics a little bit.
thinking about it. If I can get this fucking albatross podcast finished today, I'll work on it this weekend.
I know it's not a unique experience. I'm just enjoying the ride and finding amusement in the variety. So far I like it.
Okay, started out with a Wanderer. This Master Key looks useful, I'll take one of those. Whoo, don't try and fight the Asylum Demon, got it. Blocking takes some serious skill. Definitely not a button masher, I see what people were saying about the combat. I like this. MOTHERFUCKING SKELETON WITH A SHIELD PUT THAT DOWN AND DIE OR SOMETHING. Oh boy, I walk into the light and fall off a ledge right into the Asylum Demon. BALLS. Takes a bit of getting used to, but I am already seeing the appeal.
Tonight I killed my first Taurus Demon. Found places in the Undead Burg I didn't know were there the first 20 times through the area! I think I'm starting to get into the swing of this game very much indeed.
I picked this up tonight for the Xbox. Are the controls supposed to be this mushy and unresponsive? Half the time I swing a sword and it does nothing so I hit the attack button again and all of a sudden I've attacked twice and lunged myself off a ledge to my death. Moving forward seems to be odd, too. Pushing the stick up moves my dude at a trot, but then he'll suddenly start walking very very slowly for no discernible reason. The only way I seem to be able to get him to start moving properly again is to side step and then continue going forward. In the hour or so I played I spent more time dying from not being able to control my character at all than from any enemy. Thinking it might be my controller I tried a new one with a fresh battery, same thing. :( Is this like Resident Evil where the controls are deliberately terrible to make the game harder, or am I doing it wrong?
This seems really weird to me. The controls might feel unresponsive until you get used to the somewhat slower pace, since actions in Dark Souls all take time that they might not in other games, but some of that specific stuff I don't understand. I was going to say it sounded like your controller was messed up, but if you tried a second one I have no idea. Sorry :/.
Did you updated the game? from my xp with the early ps3 version there was a delayed button bug that got mostly patched out.
Make sure you read those messages on the ground. From this I'd say you missed two key ones: "RUN!" and the one that tells you how to do a plunging attack. Heh. Now that you're out of the Asylum they won't all be as useful, mind. (Try kicking blocking undead)
Kick is forward and r1 at the same time, but a wanderer iirc starts with a curved blade which means you have the suicide-inducing backflip attack in place of it. In which case it's worth staying under 25% weight and using the Dark Souls guide to backstabs I put in the OP of the main thread, as those shield guys are a pain in the nuts. Would be worth your while to get a non-curved blade weapon to deal with those guys, just because the kick completely ruins their day.
I thought it was piercing swords (ie - rapier, estoc) that did that, not curved swords. EDIT: And I thought wrong! Piercing swords have the back step, curved swords have the flip. Man. What a pain.
Watched the video on how to parry. It is incredible satisfying to do that and the riposte to those guys in the Undead Burg. So very very satisfying!
Parry is still a risk for me, but it's immensely satisfying when it works. I wonder if I can parry/riposte Havel to death.
Yes. In fact, once you get the difference in timing between his 1h and 2h attack, he doesn't even have a shield bash to throw you off. Fishing for backstabs is less risky, but in both cases they involve staying out of his 2h swing or being clobbered so it's not that different at very low levels. If you watch the expert parry tutorial, it has a special section on Havel trolling.
Warriors have ranged from the get-go: bows. You just need to buy one from the Male undead merchant. And personally, I think the Warrior is one of the best "starter" classes, but several ppl here disagree & suggest the pyromancer, as we've seen. FWIW, my first class was a pyromancer and I ended up spending my souls on damn near everything, which meant I couldn't do anything well. On the other hand, I had a blast, so maybe pyromancer *is* the best starting class.
I think it's really a queston of what you're after in your starting class. If you want something that can get you through the content without bothering with the superb combat system - go with a Sorcerer or a Pyro. If your main interest is melee, a Warrior, Bandit, Knight or Hunter are better choices. I'd agree with you and recommend a Warrior, it's got good equipment and good stats. Me, I prefer a Hunter if I'm determined to not bother at all with sorcery or miracles and want to go a Dex route. I'd actually recommend it to anyone interested in the not-magic part of the combat since it comes with a bow in the tutorial area. And a bow is something you will use to solve problems in Dark Souls.
Pyromancer is probably the optimal class in terms of the options it permits you right off the bat as well as giving you an excellent oh shit button in the form of early pyromancy. But it's optimal in terms of the raw numbers, and that gets more complex depending on what that person is interested in playing.Which you probably don't really know at the start anyway. Personally, I think the knight and the warrior are probably my favorites simply because I like the aesthetic and the feel of combat that they start off with right away, especially the latter with poise and a solid shield. Second to that would be dexterity oriented characters, with the Hunter at the top of the group and gradually down to things that aren't as awesome. But mostly I tend to start with pyros just because it lets me skip to bosses and hard sections of levels and steamroll them. Melee is significantly more troublesome to upgrade quickly from a pure efficiency standpoint. Having tried both, neither the cleric nor the sorcerer are (to me) compelling starting options. The latter is relatively powerful but I just don't like magic as much as the dynamism of melee, the sniping and move/shooting of bows, and the close combat nature of pyro. Faith is just...well, if it at least had weapons to keep up with the slow leak of worthwhile spells, that would be something. Also, I think the incredible versatility of the light crossbow in SL1 is going to make me re-assess the viability of the starting class stat set, long-term.
The best starting class is clearly Deprived, since it makes no assumptions for you about where your character should go. Worked for me, at least. :)
Due to my decision to drop a bootlegged hard drive in my 360 to add some space, my original save got lost. Not in retrievable, but I'm lazy enough and didn't lose enough to care. Started again with a pyromancer and breezed through the starting area, then went and snagged a nice shield from that dragon. Also went up and talked to whoever that guy was up the stairs, collected the stuff from the chests, ran a little through the graveyard and grabbed a few things before booking it back to the start zone. Skeletons got me, but I don't care because I pop back up five feet from my bloodstain. Then I find what I presume to be the "right" way forward. Up some stairs, right into combat with a bunch of dudes with swords and a couple with firebombs. Take care of that easily then I go up the stairs and go into the dark hallway. I see something in there, but my son comes in and I decide to retreat in the interest of not giving him potential nightmare fuel. Can't wait to get back in there. Oh, and as a pyromancer what stats should I be focusing on? This stuff is all Greek to me.
On the PC, so far something about the camera is just aggrevating the hell out of me, with either keyboard or controller.
Pyromancy is unusual because it actually doesn't scale according to any of your stats. The only thing that matters is the quality of the spell and the level of the pyromancy flame, which you can increase simply by investing souls when you encounter one of the two pyro vendors (the first one you'll rescue and he'll meet you again back at the firelink). For right now, you probably want to keep vitality and endurance increasing as the former widens your margin of error with more HP and the latter lets you wear heavier/more armor and gear, as well as increasing the length of your stamina bar. In addition, you want to keep an eye on the weapons you pick up, see if there's one you like, and raise your strength/dex accordingly to use it. You probably want to decide whether you will prioritize strength or dexterity long term, but Str through 16 is great for any class (as it opens access to the sweet spot of shields) and dex from 12-18 depending on what ranged weapon most appeals to you. But yeah, you can take a pyro in any direction as far as your specializations. See if you can figure out the rhythm of combat for <25% equip burden, as you move a lot faster, but if you're taking too much damage try to stay within 25-50% as you add armor pieces. There's a bunch of key concepts explained on the first page of this thread (like this) if you're curious. Do you have DS fix installed? What precisely about the camera is upsetting you?
This is the game in a nutshell. Stuff is challenging, then it's not so bad. Then when you think you own it like a boss, you die. DARK SOULS. Pyromancy isn't stat based like sorcery or miracles. The only stat that really affects you is attunement, which dictates how many spells you can slot (i.e. attune) at the bonfire. Some pyromancy spells may use one or two slots (but none more than that). You'll need to spend several levels worth to gain a single slot, FYI. Otherwise your free to spend however you feel like . I'd say avoid spreading it around too thin, and don't ever spend it on resistance. Ever level improves your resistances (you might have noticed). How do you find yourself playing?
I have it installed. If I use the controller, the camera is fine; if I use mouse + keyboard, the camera constantly "vibrates" every time I touch the mouse button. It's like it's hypersensitive and picking up everything. Edit: resetting to the default ini fixed it. Mouse smoothing, maybe?
No idea, and I'm glad you found a solution. For me, Alpha Protocol was the same way before it was patched, unplayable with a mouse and fine with a controller. Might be something in the DSfix file that lets you tweak that. So, wait, you have a controller and are playing M+K by choice?
I so rarely play anything with a controller that it drives me nuts. It's especially bad for games where the triggers or shoulder pads are default attack.
Well that was fun. Worked through some of Undead Burg and killed a black knight, then the game crashed. Went back in, got taken out by a burning barrel, worked back through and up the stairs, then opened a door and...crash. Guess I'm not playing any more tonight, thanks.
I have never had DS 360 crash in the 200+ hours that I have played it. I'd look to your Xbox for problems, maybe that unsupported hardware modification.
So I made it to the Parish this weekend. Take that Taurus Demon and all that. Shoot the tail! Excellent sword! Fucking Rats. Stupid bull, but hey at least you taught me how to backstab. Oh yes. I like this! Backstab the crazy rapier wielding knight guy! And a nice shield for my effort, and after a bit of time with no more Estes flasks I manage to find the bonfire. After a few goes take out the giant guy in the chapel/church, and explore more. This game is wonderful and I think I'm hooked.
Nonsense. It's a hard drive I meticulously modified with instructions from the Internet. No way could that be causing any problems.
Okay, whoa, holy crap. Teaching me through death? Man, I'm learning a TON! Mainly that I have no idea how to effectively kick. I like the idea of using it as a quick interrupt for weak enemies, but shit, I can't do it most of the time. Every now and then it fires off, but I don't know why. I feel like I need to grind the early parts of the Undead Burg so I can learn how to freakin' fight. :(
