I'm finally gonna play Dark Souls...advice?

[Mr.Squishy]

Most of the basics has already been covered pretty well here, but I'll share my two cents.
- Don't get bogged down with too much/heavy armor, I guess except if you're going for full-out tanking everything.
- Tying into the above, mobility is good.
- Try to get enemies into one-on-one
- Exploit the environment; drop attacks (stepping off of a ledge above an enemy and pushing RT/R2 with a melee weapon) does massive damage. Watch out for falling damage to yourself, though.
- Related to the above; find chokepoints, bottlenecks and places where you can kick people off ledges.
- Master the basic moveset (dodging, kicking, jump-charge attack - all of which are in the tutorial), and weapon-specific movesets
- Upgrade your weapons by finding and talking to blacksmiths - this is vital.
- You cannot parry, kick or backstab things that are more than 150% your size, approx.
- Watch your stamina bar.
- Kill the dogs first. You'll know what I mean.
- Find something that can illuminate dark areas.
- Explore, but be sure that you can retreat.
- Study enemy attack/defense patterns.
- Some moves cannot be blocked, no matter how good your shield or poise.
- More poise = more good.
- Red and black-glowing people are dicks who will invade you given the chance.
- Blue and black-glowing people are likely also dicks, but harder to get invaded by.
- When you die, your bloodstain won't be where you died, but rather where you were a few seconds before dying.

 

[KOMega]

I'm sure everyone else has filled you in to the basic understanding of the game. So instead I'll just give you a tip for one of the most "rage quit" moments of the game. This will probably mean nothing to you until you get there, but keep in mind:

At the Bed of Chaos, you can take out the two sides by continuously firing arrows at them from around the starting position instead of running up to them. Takes about 10 or so arrows each side.
You'll have to still jump for the middle however.

 

[kalakashi]

The way I see it is, you have to play Dark Souls as if it were you in the boots of your character, as if it was your life that was at stake. In a place like Lordran, would YOU sprint into the next area willy-nilly to see who jumps out from the shadows/corners to attack you? Or would you take it nice and slow, peeking around each new environment in fear of an ambush? Would you risk getting hit by that 25 foot hammer to get an extra stab in, or would you wait until you definitely had a safe window of opportunity to attack?

Also something I'm not sure how many people are aware of, but you can take more than 1 swig of Estus per animation if you press it repeatedly. Useful for a quick double-chug in desperate situations.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

My advice is play the game. Don't read these posts.

Although...do at least concentrate your stats. Don't put anything into Resistance, and don't half ass anything.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Also, big, tall, relatively thin, knights in full black armor... You can kill them, they never respawn, and have a chance to drop some REALLY nice weapons. Make sure you're ready though, if you can't kill them they will hound you to the ends of the earth. Running is futile.

Lol, running is futile, unless you find a ladder. They haven't quite mastered those.

What? The enemy is on a ledge 4 feet above me? Oh well, better forget about ever reaching him even though I'm 7 feet tall with a 7 foot sword.

 

[Austin93]

The one piece of advice I can give is try and not get angry when you die. In a lot of games these days you don't die very often and as such people go from playing those games to this one and get really angry when they die so often.

You will die and you will probably die a lot. As a result of this dying, there will be times where you lose a lot of souls and/or humanity. Dying is part of the game and there will always be more souls and humanity ahead. Learn to accept this and the game will be a lot less rage inducing.

Also, Riddle78 bought up the point of scaling. I would like to point out how important it is you understand this, at least from my perspective. I didn't properly understand it my first playthrough and so I was stuck with horrible weapons and a gimped character. Basically, most of the time if you focus heavily on a stat (for me it's Dex), then a weapon with a good scaling in that stat will often end up a lot more powerful than if you put some sort of elemental upgrade on it, as any sort of elemental upgrade or making your weapons raw makes the scaling worse. It will also end up better than a weapon with a better base damage, but no scaling. This is why the Drake Sword and many other boss weapons are so widely lambasted in my opinion, as they tend to have high base damage but no scaling and can't be upgraded that much.

The exemption to the above is if you're focusing on intelligence or faith instead of dex or strength. If that's the case, you'll want to get your weapons to divine or occult for faith, or enchanted for intelligence.

I probably haven't explained it that well, but hopefully it'll make more sense when you start playing. If after some playing you still don't understand, I recommend doing some research into scaling and how it works.

TL;DR, Accept death, don't get angry over lost souls and learn about scaling

As a side note, I would like to point out that there is deep back story and highly detailed lore behind virtually every character in the game, a lot if not all of them sad. The issue is most of it's vague and takes some searching. A lot of it's told through item descriptions, but don't feel bad about consulting videos or guides surrounding the story if you don't get it

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Start as a pyromancer bro. It doesnt affect anything much noteworthy except your starter gear and every character should use pyromancy since it works without a stat so getting a flame early is great. Also get the skeleton key as the starting item since it will let you into heaps of awesome places.

 

[Alarien]

Legion and many of the others said what needs to be said. I posted this in another thread, but here were my thoughts:

Spoiler

1) Make sure you're playing with a controller. I suggest the Xbox controller. I hate the PS3 controller (great in 1996/98, not so much in 2014). I play now on PC so a controller there is required. Console I guess would depend on your console.

2) Read some guides and do not feel bad about it. Dark Souls isn't a game that you have to play blind unless you really just want to claim some sort of pseudo-ironman bullshit.

3) Replay the opening tutorial section. Delete. Repeat. Delete. Repeat. Get it to where you can breeze through it in about 3 minutes or less. It will get you really used to the movement controls and some of the basic game mechanics.

4) Get a light/medium shield and practice blocking and parrying on the undead on the way up to the burg. Clear them several times. Get used to the timing of block, parry, and dodge on basic enemies and you'll be more comfortable with the timing on others.

5) Jump back and forth between the burg path from Firelink and the lower section of the bridge/aquaduct before you enter (where you can see the corpse with the shining loot object). It will get you used to dash/jump timing.

6) Drake Sword. (Shoot the tail of the Hellkite Wyvern (the big red dragon thing) until it falls off). Not my favorite weapon, or one I used, but it is overpowered for when it is obtainable and will make things a lot easier.

7) Use Hellkite Wyvern (see above) at the bridge to get a lot of early easy exp. Once you get to this point and unlock the shortcut/ladder to that first bonfire, just go up onto the bridge and as soon as you hear a rumble, run back down inside. Hellkite will torch all the undead on the bridge and you get free exp. Rest at the bonfire and rinse/repeat for a little while.

General tips:

Blind corners are not your friend. Ever. Assume any corner you can't see around has an enemy hiding there. Step in/roll back immediately. Never run blindly into a hallway, room, or alley you can't see completely.

Watch the ground. Watch ahead of you. Traps are *really* obvious in this game. You just have to watch for pressure plates or giant boulders that happen to be sitting around on some incline above you.

Poise: Your ability to resist knockback/stagger on damage. Low poise means you'll be pushed back more by blocked attacks and your attack/casting is more likely to be interrupted. High poise means you'll be able to attack through being hit. Very good in PVP, but has its uses in PVE.

Shield stability: The higher a shield's stability, the less endurance it requires to block an attack. A shield with 100% physical damage resistance and high stability can fully block MOST of the physical attacks from most of the game's monsters, including bosses, with minimal endurance requirement. The Greatshield of Artorius (requires Sif's Soul) is the best turtling shield in the game, in my opinion, if that style of gameplay appeals to you (I prefer blocking to rolling, personally). If you want a solid turtling shield, use Sif's soul for this on your first playthrough. Do not get one of the two sword options, especially not the "True" Greatsword of Artorius, which is only really effective at around level 200+. At least the cursed version of the Greatsword can hit ghosts...

Get to know "movesets" of each of the weapons you run across. There is a lot out there about DPS, sustained, single-hit and other weapon stats, but what really should matter is if you and a weapon's attacks just sorta "click." On my first PC playthrough (after a couple plays through on XBox360), I discovered the Black Knight Halberd. For me, it owned PVE (sucks in PVP btw). Practice each one around Firelink.

Balance the weight of your equipment. Above 50% of your weight capacity, your character will "fatroll." It's kinda awful. At less than 50%, you will "midroll" which is significantly better, but still is a bit slow to recover. At less than 25% (and in a couple increments to 0%) you will "fast roll," which allows you to dodge/roll several times quickly to avoid damage and get out of dodge. Find what works for you and balance the weight of your equipment around that. There is a reason a lot of players are seen practically naked. Having really powerful heavy armor isn't necessarily what will work best for you. Personally, I'm a mid-roller.

Some quick thoughts (relatively) that help explain some of the game's more odd mechanics.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Well I just started and killed that first boss.

I'm addicted. It's everything Yahtzee said it was.

 

[Alarien]

Well I just started and killed that first boss.

I'm addicted. It's everything Yahtzee said it was.

Which first boss?

Asylum, Taurus, or Gargoyles? They are all sorta "first" in their own way.

Also, congrats.

And Praise the Sun.

Commit some sins. Shoot Queen Victoria's Secret Has No Size for YOU in the face.

I will appear in your game at some point.

To kill you.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

In the beginning, be prepared for, in general:

1. A lack of explanation.

2. A lack of options.

3. A massive amount of death. (After the tutorial anyway.)

If you find that you don't like Dark Souls no matter how much you play it:

Don't worry about it. Dark Souls is NOT for everyone. Heck, it wasn't for me. If you don't like it, don't be afraid to say it. Contrary to popular belief, Dark Souls has some rather questionable design decisions behind it. IMAO, they're VERY questionable.

 

[Blitsie]

Might be late to the party, but I highly recommend just diving in and learning as you go. The less you know the better, basically. A large part of Dark Souls is having to figure things out for yourself, to actually grow better with your character (the game is actually easy, you just suck at first and it punishes you extremely for it) as you play. Going through a guide or getting starter tips or all that really destroys some great surprises and removes a lot of that great mystery that surrounds the game.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Well I just started and killed that first boss.

I'm addicted. It's everything Yahtzee said it was.

Which first boss?

Asylum, Taurus, or Gargoyles? They are all sorta "first" in their own way.

Also, congrats.

And Praise the Sun.

Commit some sins. Shoot Queen Victoria's Secret Has No Size for YOU in the face.

I will appear in your game at some point.

To kill you.

Asylum thing, the thing that I dropped my massive club on it's head, because my Caveman Warrior NookNook knows only CRUSH!

Which sadly, that knight should of known better... He went squish... Then I met this crestfallen fellow, sadly NookNook could not defeat him. And I've just been grinding for a bet not going to far from the first campfire in... Landor is it?

The gameplay is just so lovely, it scratches that each that hasn't been satisfied since I first beat Hotline Miami. That borderline sweetspot between fun and frustration. I mean if it wasn't for that, the whole thing really isn't my game. Generally I hate fantasy games. Swords/Elves/Magic/Demons. It's all silly to me, I'm a scifi guy.

But now, I am NookNook. Caveman. Searching the world to become fleshy again.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Punch any wall that may or may not look suspicious. Because if it does look suspicious, it probably is.

Talk to NPCs. Exhaust their dialogue. I cannot stress this enough. Especially the dude in silver sitting on his butt. "Waaah, I couldn't figure out where to go. I went to the wrong place and got instaraped!" That crap doesn't happen if you talk to people. Seriously, do it. I don't want to see you back here in 3 days complaining that a skeleton ran its sword up your ass.

Slap dogs in the face with your weapon. If you see an enemy and it looks like a dog, it's not cute and it doesn't want to sit in your lap. It will eat your face. You don't want that to happen. Slap it with a weapon before it eats your face. You will face several.

It's usually a good idea to upgrade your equipment whenever possible, even if it means holding off on increasing your stats.

Don't have negative thoughts. Remember your mantra.

May He shine on you throughout your journey. Umbasa.

 

[timeformime]

Concentrate on not dying. It sounds silly, but when you are careful at every turn, keep your shield up, and do everything in your power to not take damage, you'd be surprised how much more manageable everything is. If you only do that, eventually you'll get a feel for the game and get the hang of it.

Also, there's no shame in needing a guide for something, but don't let it be a crutch. At least only decide to follow a guide when you've made it a good way through the game (that's what I did for Demon's Souls world 5).

 

[Augustine]

I wouldn't call this beginner's advice, but it is something you should keep in mind the entire game:
EVERY significant challenge in the game can be done either "normally" or creatively. Creative thinking, thinking outside of the box almost always would make said challenges notably easier.
In other words, if you seem to hit a brick wall in progression - take a deep breath, step back, and think about it. Trying to outfight and outdodge everything is often not the optimal way.

DS is harder than most modern games to be sure, but anyone who lived through 8/16 bit era must know that there are vastly more challenging things out there.

 

[suitepee7]

something that confused me was magic, and casting spells. in order to do this you need several things

1) you must have at least 1 attunement slot (gained by leveling up - you guessed it - attunement)
2) you must buy the spell you want to cast
3) you must go to a bonfire, select attune magic, and assign the spell to your attunement slot
4) you must equip the necessary item to cast the magic in one of your hands (a catalyst for sorceries, pyromancy flame for pyromancies and talisman for miracles)
5) light attack will cast the magic.

i got confused at stage 1...

if you are unsure as to what to spend your souls on, i'd go for weapon upgrades>stats/armour upgrades/shield upgrades.

go human before fighting a boss, but don't worry about being hollowed the rest of the time. being human lets you summon before the fight

you do not have to be human to have your humanity effective! humanity (up to 10) increases the chances of enemies dropping items and increases the damage of chaos weapons, but this will work whether you are hollowed or human!

also, have a general idea of your build idea, and stick to it. loads of builds are viable, but you cannot take back levels.

oh and the generally accepted level for PvP is around 125, if you level any further then it will likely reduce the amount of PvP you can participate in

 

[Blackpapa]

snip

Maybe you shouldn't be playing this infamously bad pc port of a game designed to be played with a gamepad with mouse and keyboard?

I installed vJoy (http://vjoystick.sourceforge.net/site/) and wrote a simple AHK script that mapped mouseX/Y axis to the virtual joystick device.

I used simple friction for vjoy -0.75f to 0.75f and added a 25% quad ease over 0.25s for values>=0.75f and -0.75f for dampening. Deadzone emulation is handled by the friction coefficient, but in practice it can be very small because any cheap mouse doesn't HAVE random analog jitter. The input to output ratio still wasn't there so I've further mapped the output to a stretched fragment of a sine curve. And no problems with mouse controls. Fast when I need it, precise for small movements.

http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/forces-and-motion
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoshSutphin/20130416/190541/Doing_Thumbstick_Dead_Zones_Right.php

I did try mapping WSAD to a second virtual analog device but that only gave a feeling of weight and clunkiness - the character already has decent inertia and WSAD maps to extreme 1f to -1f and it works pretty well. The game CAN be adapted to M/K easily, is what I'm saying.

It took me what, 5 hours? Probably half that if I didn't have to work around with virtual devices. Not sure if this is incompetence, stupidity or laziness, or a combination of those. From Software reminds me of those nips that decided to stick around in a jungle since WW2, refusing to acknowledge the world moved on.

To be honest, I think I enjoyed writing that script more than I did playing the game.

 

[briankoontz]

Second question: any game advice for a beginner?

My advice is to not take any advice, at least at the beginning. Dark Souls is the one of the greatest worlds ever constructed in a video game and much of the joy of exploring is in not knowing what's around the corner or how to get there. You may come to love the world of Dark Souls as many others have. Too much advice and you'll have to choose between loving the advice and loving Dark Souls, a choice no one should have to make.

 

[Canadish]

Remember your equipment is more important than your levels.

Go RIGHT up the cliff-face when you reach Firelink Shrine.

Your starting class doesn't matter much. Pyromancer starts the lowest level, which means it's the most malleable class.

The Master Key is the undisputed best starting item, but is kind of cheating on your first run-through.

The Drake Sword is a trap. Don't get it.

KILL THE DOGS FIRST.