Dark Souls: Initial Thoughts

[Googenstien]

Took yesterday off because of sunday football.. but all I could do was think about the game. I am up to Blighttown and in my low 30s. The piece of advice I can give anyone is use Humanity to become human and summon in help for bosses.. there is no reason to not.

Generally I will clear my way to a boss fog and then look for the bonfire or backtrack to the old one. Then I will use 2 humanity to reverse hollow and then kindle the bonfire, I need at least 10 flasks. Then I make my way back to the boss area and look for summon signs and I always find them (way of the white covenant)

Also, if you want practice on the boss you drop a summon sign near the boss.. and help others kill the bosses. You get Humanity and souls for doing so. I see no reason to horde Humanity and fear being human.. the only place I got invaded was in The Depths and I smoked the guy for some reason without taking hits.

I've seen no summon signs. I tried one myself for the capra demon, but nothing came of it.
I really have not much understanding of the fnctioon of humanity and have found, at most about 3 points so far. So it's a game mechanic that's entirely redundant afaic. What's the point then?

Which Covenant are you in? that is your faction and which covenant you are seems to decide who you see in ghost form, which msgs you see on the ground and which summon signs you see from people.. probably also which phantoms can invade too. Not clear on how this all works, like if you only see other msgs and summon signs from the exact covenant you are or if they are all aligned in some manor.

I actually think Dark Souls' online mechanics are better than Demons Souls, but I can see how it will confuse new players to the game. Humanity is no where near as limited as the masks that you had to consume in Demons Souls in order to come out of soul form.. there were only so many per each run thru of the game. In Dark Souls you can get Humanity as mob drops, and by assisting others kill a boss/demon.. so technically its an unlimited supply in each play through.

 

[AlternatePFG]

I'm a bit confused on what to do after the Belfry Gargoyle boss and after ringing the first bell. Where do I go next, exactly?

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

QUESTION: Is there ANY reason to keep the broken sword you start out with? Because the only thing keeping me from dropping it is the though that maybe, just maybe, it's a key component to some awesome master sword you can get later in the game which seems like something From Software would do to fuck with you. "Oh you want this awesome sword? Well it's all yours! You just need that broken sword you started out with and... oh... you threw it away huh? Oh well, sucks for you!"

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Well I am on NG+, so if anyone got questions, you can ask me.

you sir are a legend

 

[krazykidd]

Took yesterday off because of sunday football.. but all I could do was think about the game. I am up to Blighttown and in my low 30s. The piece of advice I can give anyone is use Humanity to become human and summon in help for bosses.. there is no reason to not.

Generally I will clear my way to a boss fog and then look for the bonfire or backtrack to the old one. Then I will use 2 humanity to reverse hollow and then kindle the bonfire, I need at least 10 flasks. Then I make my way back to the boss area and look for summon signs and I always find them (way of the white covenant)

Also, if you want practice on the boss you drop a summon sign near the boss.. and help others kill the bosses. You get Humanity and souls for doing so. I see no reason to horde Humanity and fear being human.. the only place I got invaded was in The Depths and I smoked the guy for some reason without taking hits.

Thats a npc invasion, kill him and you get to aummon him for boss, hes extremly usrfull being resisntante to fire . Man fuck that boss , she/it was tough as nails .

 

[krazykidd]

QUESTION: Is there ANY reason to keep the broken sword you start out with? Because the only thing keeping me from dropping it is the though that maybe, just maybe, it's a key component to some awesome master sword you can get later in the game which seems like something From Software would do to fuck with you. "Oh you want this awesome sword? Well it's all yours! You just need that broken sword you started out with and... oh... you threw it away huh? Oh well, sucks for you!"

Yeah , get the triforce , put it the sword in the slot at the temple of time , it becomes the master sword , continue on and you will fast foward in time 7 years ... Oh wait wrong game .

Lol i'm sorry it was just too easy.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

A lot of the online isn't being used because a) people are having a hard enough time playing offline and b) it's so badly implemented and so lacking in explanation it's just getting overlooked.

This game is suffocating because it's so arcane. NOTHING is explained. I just learned the magic weapon spell which i have no idea how to use only to find that it doesn't work on the drake sword. waste of souls there.

Quite frankly i'm getting tired. The game is proving to be a real chore to play. Not so much because it's hard, which it is (although the reasons for that more are due to crap level design and mob placement), but because it just gives the player nothing to work with. I have no idea what i'm doing, where i'm going and why. The constant repetition of fighting the same mobs in the same places with the same tactics, as aresult of bonfire use/death, is just an appalling piece of game design. Yes i died, yes it's hard...but yes, it's getting really fucking tedious. Round and round the undead burg, over and over. FFS.

I beat the capra demon through a combination of cheap gameplay (IMO - it wasn't satisfying though fortunately it's over) and crap ai. The camera was forever stuck behind a tree. The lock on system falls to pieces when you are in cramped space with enemies right in your grill.

This game should have been more rigorously playtested. The fact that it's so beloved of a bunch of hardcore idiots is it's greatest flaw. That it's 'prepare to die, this game is ROCK HARD' isn't enough of a basis for a game's design.

Having to constantly stop to look stuff up on the internet in order to beat a boss or learn how something works is absolutely the wrong way to play a game.

7/10.

Can't help but feel the urge to totally disregarded your opinion, as you've refered to me (part of its fan base) an idiot.
All i'll respond is that everyones entitled to enjoy different things.

 

[Shadie777]

Disregard what you like. It's your lookout. Im not telling you what to enjoy, I'm telling what's wrong with the game. Unfortunately for the gaming hobby this game has seen fit to insert a crazy fog in people's minds that blinds them to a host of very obvious faults.

snip

please do remember that this is your opinion on what is wrong with the game, it may be a opinion which is shared by some people but it is still an opinion. You obviously do not like this game, that is fine. It happens. But please do not assume that we are being mislead and manipulated. I am not blind to some of the faults in this game, It just does not lessen the experience for me.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

It's hard, and the game doesn't tell me anything! I wasted a freaking Fire Keeper Soul because I thought you were supposed to "Use Item" >.<

Also I have no freaking idea where to go after ringing the first bell! I even killed the Moonlight Butterfly.. Where to now!?

Remember the bridge with the dragon in the Undead Burg? Near the beginning of the bridge, there was a locked door. With the key you got from defeating the Moonlight Butterfly, it will now open. At the end of that new area is the Capra Demon. Kill him and you get a key to the Depths, which is to the left of the boss battle entrance. Also to the left is a shortcut back to Firelink Shrine, so you should open that up before you go hunting the Capra, because he is one mean fucker.

Once you get through the Depths, your next stop is Blighttown, which contains the second bell... sort of. You'll see.

Anyways, I'm really enjoying Dark Souls in comparison to Demon's Souls. While the controls seem to have suffered, namely the auto-lock system, which is atrocious now, the open world structure combined with the infinitely improved aesthetics makes me much more determined to explore and keep on trucking. In Demon's Souls I fought because I wanted to win, but in Dark Souls I'm enjoying the path and the destination.

Correction: You don't need to fight the Butterfly to get the key. It is found in the area around the Boar. He needs the Basement Key, you are thinking of the Tower Basement Key.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I'm a bit confused on what to do after the Belfry Gargoyle boss and after ringing the first bell. Where do I go next, exactly?

Remember picking up a Basement Key? It opens up a door at the start of the bridge with the dragon on it.

 

[Korten12]

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Hey, if you guys aren't in the Dark Souls user group already, we are having a live chat where we discuss Dark Souls while we play.

http://tinychat.com/korten12

Join and talk with us.

Anyone else who also is interested in joining the chat, join!!!

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Took yesterday off because of sunday football.. but all I could do was think about the game. I am up to Blighttown and in my low 30s. The piece of advice I can give anyone is use Humanity to become human and summon in help for bosses.. there is no reason to not.

Generally I will clear my way to a boss fog and then look for the bonfire or backtrack to the old one. Then I will use 2 humanity to reverse hollow and then kindle the bonfire, I need at least 10 flasks. Then I make my way back to the boss area and look for summon signs and I always find them (way of the white covenant)

Also, if you want practice on the boss you drop a summon sign near the boss.. and help others kill the bosses. You get Humanity and souls for doing so. I see no reason to horde Humanity and fear being human.. the only place I got invaded was in The Depths and I smoked the guy for some reason without taking hits.

Thats a npc invasion, kill him and you get to aummon him for boss, hes extremly usrfull being resisntante to fire . Man fuck that boss , she/it was tough as nails .

Oh god. It was the first boss that really gave me trouble. I had to summon the NPC to help. Fuck that shout attack.

 

[TheDooD]

Considering you lose ALL your souls and ALL your humanity when you die, i'd say that's a pretty big incentive to fear death. Not to mention that the further you progress without dying, the greater the relatisation that should you die, you'll have to make your way all the way back to that exact spot to get your stuff back - something that may be impossible if getting to that point was a tough endeavour to start with or a fluke. So progression is kind of a double-edged sword and provides yet another reason to fear the reaper.

Not to mention if you want the best chance of getting exceptional loot, you need to stay human and have a high humanity count. Both of which you will lose if you die.

Except you can't avoid death and it happens a lot. So then by your reasoning the end result is frustration. Any game that is designed to be frustrating is badly designed. People won't play this game if that's the case and I can guarantee that in a week's time you'll see half the copies on sale, used. If i were a developer i'd look upon that as abject failure. Nothing to be proud of.
Since you die constantly in this game it has no meaning. Sure you lose everytyhing, but in the end so what: you will anyway. Even then spending it is irrelevant since no matter how pwoerful you make yourself, the game will fuck you over. That's what DS does.

This is the problem with brutal game design: it's self defeating.

It's only self defeating it you thinking it as such. Dark/Demon's Souls design is that you shouldn't fear failure and that every encounter can make you stronger. In fact in Dark Souls they made it easier for you. you just have to not be afraid of the danger out there.

 

[AlternatePFG]

I'm a bit confused on what to do after the Belfry Gargoyle boss and after ringing the first bell. Where do I go next, exactly?

Remember picking up a Basement Key? It opens up a door at the start of the bridge with the dragon on it.

Yeah, I figured that out and now I'm fighting Capra Demon. It wouldn't be nearly as difficult if I could get a good fucking camera angle on the thing.

 

[ZeroMachine]

It's FROM Software. They couldn't consistently design a decent menu if their lives depended on it.

Yeah but at least Demon's Souls' menu looked nice and didn't resemble something you'd see in an RPG made in the late 90's/early 00's. It's just ugly as fuck man.

I actually kinda like the menu's aesthetic. It represents the sort of game I wanted to get out of Dark Souls. Dark, dreary, old school difficulty.

Definitely getting that, too. As Darksiders was the best Zelda game I played in a long time, I feel like this is the best Castlevania game I've played since Circle of the Moon

Demon's/Dark souls doesn't have old school difficulty, it's very new school, in fact. Sure, games were harder back in the day, but they were also incredibly unfair, meant to keep you playing for as long as possible, to drain your wallet of every possible penny (They kept doing this during the first console generations because developers kinda stuck to the "old ways"). Demon's/Dark Souls difficulty is very fair, you know exactly why you fail.

You ever play Castlevania or Megaman? I consider those games "old school difficulty", and those games are the same way. You die because you fuck up while following the pattern.

Hell, I compared Dark Souls to Castlevania the way some people compared Darksiders to Zelda.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Disregard what you like. It's your lookout. Im not telling you what to enjoy, I'm telling what's wrong with the game. Unfortunately for the gaming hobby this game has seen fit to insert a crazy fog in people's minds that blinds them to a host of very obvious faults.

snip

please do remember that this is your opinion on what is wrong with the game, it may be a opinion which is shared by some people but it is still an opinion. You obviously do not like this game, that is fine. It happens. But please do not assume that we are being mislead and manipulated. I am not blind to some of the faults in this game, It just does not lessen the experience for me.

Thank you, i'm fully cogniscent of what an opinion is.

I didn't say it was a bad game. I said it was a badly made game.

For instance, if you accidentally attack an npc, there is no cooldown. This means if you accidentally hit a vendor/trainer you are screwed. That might sound amusing, and people may get a good chuckle out of it, but the shortsightedness of that design is embarassing in 2011, and arguing consequences in a game where you can come back to life is a bit fatuous.

i believe thats classed as a sin, and the cost of forgiveness in souls is 2000 x your soul level

 

[Pearwood]

Jesus.

You know the humanity you got off of that corpse by the well when you first got out of the asylum? Use that and cash it in at the bonfire to turn yourself into a human.

How is it that people can't figure this out?

That was unnecessary. I do know that, my point remains that you'll spend more time hollow than not.

 

[Rabid Toilet]

It's only self defeating it you thinking it as such. Dark/Demon's Souls design is that you shouldn't fear failure and that every encounter can make you stronger. In fact in Dark Souls they made it easier for you. you just have to not be afraid of the danger out there.

That isn't the case. You don't learn from dying. You are simply forced to respawn. The act of dying in game doesn't intrinsically impart knowledge or favour. Every encounter doesn't make you stronger. It might garner souls, but unless you spend those souls, thereby respawning all the non-boss mobs again, you remain the same. You don't get to practise against bosses without going through all that repetition in order to get back to that boss. Even then they are so big and inexplicable it isn't particularly easy to learn what they do and how they work. The end result is people just use google, and that's the sign of poor game design. Players don't fear the danger they just don't enjoy pointless repetition in a game that thinks it's more than it is.

You do get stronger every encounter. Not as a character, but as a player.

If something kills you, you now know, as a player, what to expect. Whether it's a trap you didn't spot or a move an enemy uses, you are now better prepared to deal with the situation the next time you encounter it.

As for the bosses, it is kind of annoying having to replay the level just to get one more shot at learning them, but they don't have that many mechanics, and it shouldn't take you more than one or two attempts to get a good feel for the fight.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Right, i have no idea how or what that means in game.

soul level can be seen in the level up screen, select (ps3) or back (360) will describe it.
hitting NPC's is classed as a sin, and to attone for that, the price is high (payment in souls suprise suprise) i think you have to pay after you ring the church bell

 

[twistedheat15]

My biggest prob with the game is the weapon atks. They changed a lot of them that worked well to weird screwed up animations. The Halberd which used to atk with the axe part in downward motions now just gets jabbed forward with your char stumbling as they do it. The Morning star just get one big thrust downward, again with your char stumbling. A lot of those weapons didn't need the atk patterns screwed up when they worked fine for what they where most needed for.

Also while not as big of a deal I don't like that my char looks like a old corpse when it's hallowed. I spent like an hr in OCD fulled char customizing, only to find I'm gonna be spending most of my time as a mummy. Either way I like that the enemies are smarter and will follow you up ladders and stairs and actually use better strats then "run in with my cock out flail".

You need more endurance and strength when you are at 1/4 encumberance your attacks are much faster and you move more nimbly overall. Also why does anyone care how your character looks. Once you put your equipment on thats all you see. By the end of the game you will look silly in some way.

Nah I'm already well over the requirements for the weapons, it's just how they changed to animations compared to the first game, exp: maces in demon's used to swing in combo's like a sword, now it just does an overhead slam to the ground that leaves you paused for a bit after. And the char thing isn't a big deal like I said, just didn't like walking around as a corpse after spending so much time on the customizing.