I had a guy invade once who was wearing no armor, standing with his back to me I backstabbed him about 10 times doing 0 damage everytime then he killed me in 1 hit. Pretty great. He actually messaged me saying he was cheating and I was like no shit.

I honestly wonder why someone would do such a thing. Seriously? Do you suck so much at this game that you need infinite health and stamina to not get killed constantly? Or am I missing something?

Well, if you think about it - why would anyone do such a thing in any game, ever? I'm pretty sure you miss nothing.

They do that to grief other players because they are pathetic dweebs.

I'm replaying this and almost caught up to my original playthrough, 20 hours less time haha. Doing a similar setup/build that I tore DS2 up with, mostly STR, VIT, END, Lightning Claymore, etc. Never finished it before though and I think I'm near new material (Demon Ruins is one).

PvP definitely sucks here. Didn't take long to remember. I don't know what they did, but I loved the multiplayer stuff in DS2 the most.

And damn I forgot how silly the repairing was in this and Demon's. I mean you're spending pennies and it's no big deal, but pretty tedious racing through those menu's constantly. They definitely revamped this stuff for the best in DS2.

It's way harder to level up in this one after awhile than DS2, where that felt really frequent throughout the entire run to me. Overall, I still feel like DS1 is definitely harder and has a bit more variety in the enemy types and looks. But DS2 made a lot of nice improvements. It's just impossible to say which one I favor. But I'm already planning on jumping back into DS2 after this run, and then dive into NG+ there. DS2 looks like an easy platinum for sure.

The atmosphere for Ash Lake...

http://i.imgur.com/cngzA9A.gif

Indeed. I was awe-struck the first time I entered Ash Lake. The place feels bloody sacred, as if your tainted little feet don't even deserve to stomp all over the place.

This and the Duke's Archives for me were beyond words. There's nothing of this caliber in DS2.

All around DS1 easily feels like the darkest game of the series as well to me. And yeah, the atmosphere is insane.

Still tons to love about DS2, but it's all too easy to see DS1 was more extravagant.

Nah, when I roll up bitches better move.

Coincidentally, on my last playthrough I raged and quit after doing Duke's Archives on NG+. Just got too infuriated to put up with it and went "I already beat this game three times, fuck this."

It's kind of funny but the second half of Dark Souls, even going into new material for this run, has honestly been pretty easy to me. I've got a maxed out lightning claymore, maxed out fire bastard sword, Silver Knight armor set that's almost maxed, and that does it I guess. I got one magic slot for random pyromancy, but other than that I just purely leveled up STR, VIT, and END. It really helps to pay attention to all the stats, that probably helps a lot too haha (I guess I didn't pay too much attention to the elements and such until midway into DS2 or something). I threw on the painted armor set to take on Dark Sun and it was so easy being able to take tons of magic hits, while the light armor let me run up on him real fast. Very cool fight though. Four Kings I fought early and went back for last, was still a bit dangerous, but with the Silver Knight armor set and that poise, 20 flasks, etc, I wasn't going down.

I almost want to say the difficulty might balance out with DS2 somehow. Although the harder parts of DS2 are far more spread out and few in between, they were still there from time to time. DS1 has less bonfires and the infinite respawning enemies might make some parts tricky (the trek to Bed of Chaos got a little tiresome haha), but not much. First half wise I'd easily say DS1 is tougher though.

Maybe STR builds are just this dangerous. It's just funny because I'm not using the insane STR two handed weapons either or anything.

Maybe I've just finally evolved.

I heard this game's great. I might get it soon.

I'm a chunk into the DLC... this was absolutely worth it.

Wow, glad somebody decided to start a DS thread, i bought the game in January and i've been spending alot of my free time playing it, Kickass game I must say. Hopefully this thread won't die, Its nice to talk to fellow metalheads about a game i enjoy. It's far easier than trying to talk to a group of holier than thou, elitist nerds.

Haven't had much time to play Da Souls in the last month or so but I just picked it back up recently and am currently tooling around in Sen's Fortress. What an annoying place. I've managed to explore a good deal of it but haven't found a bonfire yet, so have to keep tediously tooling my way through. Also FINALLY got the one last Large Titanite I needed to take my longsword up to +10, so at least I can continue that upgrade path going forward.

Dark Souls really does have a way of making you feel like a retard.

Hint at Sen's Fortress bonfire (super easy to miss):

Yeah, I almost ragequit the game at that point before realizing it was there and thinking I had to run the whole thing over every time I died to the Iron Golem...hahaha.

Looking back on it, that area was one of my favorite sections of the game - it's true you feel retarded at first, but then like such a pro when you can practically run it blindfolded by the end. I hope there's another trap-heavy area like that in DS2.

There's that hidden bonfire but even without it you don't need to do the whole thing if you somehow die at the boss (which you shouldn't unless you get an unlocky knock back off the edge ), there's a big shortcut with that elevator.

Wait wait, there's an elevator that takes you to the top of Sen's Fortress? Go on...

Come now, not all of us have such godlike DS skills. I think I died maybe ten or so times against the Iron Golem.

Granted, I'm not exclusively bad at bosses; took Queelag, Seath and Bed of Chaos down after 3 or 4 tries. So far O&S and now the Pursuer have been my worst enemies, though those at least seem to be "That One Boss" for a host of other players too.

Oh God, that jump took me so many tries to make. Glad jumping in 2 feels a little more accurate.

that elevator is easily missed too.

JUST ORDERED THE SECOND GAME AHH.

If you're playing on PC at 60 FPS, hit Backspace before doing a jump to toggle off the 60 FPS back to 30 just for that jump. Trust me, you'll pull your hair out otherwise and wonder why jumps you succeeded easily on console don't work anymore.

In the lower section of Sen's Fortress, where all the titanite demons are, I took out the first two with ease and then for some infuriating reason kept getting killed over and over in the other room where there are two of them spaced out a bit, even though I was trying my damnedest to take on just one at a time. Frustrating as hell. I had to break away from that for a while to explore elsewhere, but I'll probably go back down there eventually for more self-punishing. I'm probably just going about it in the wrong way and am too much of an idiot to realize what I'm doing wrong. Though such a major key to success in DS is understanding enemy patterns, especially against powerful enemies like these, where one false move can spell your doom.

At this point in the game I'm noticing the initial mismanagement of my leveling coming back to haunt me a bit. During some encounters I'm starting to feel a bit underpowered.

I tried to play this on my PC and couldn't do it. I probably need an Xbox style gamepad? I'm using a PS2 style gamepad and it just feels awful. Also the controls are mapped all wonky, can't even figure out how to do certain stuff.

It's not just you, that room in Sen's Fortress with the two titanite demons on the opposite sides of the room is considered to be one of the hardest in the entire game. Not only are they tougher than the first two in terms of HP, they're in a room with no cover; and considering how much rolling and moving you (I?) have to do when fighting them, you usually end up inevitably drawing the attention of both of them at once, which is nigh-impossible to deal with. I believe it's generally recommended that one leave those two alone until much later in the game.

Not only that but you have to sacrifice a ring slot for the rust ring to be able to move properly.

And there is really little reward for beating them beyond 1 demon titanite each. And of course, bragging rights.

I believe the Titanite Demon that's towards the end of that huge room won't aggro as long as you stick to the hall that leads there and lure the other one towards you. That strategy has always worked for me, at least.

Ah, well that all makes me feel like a tad less of a shitheel. I kinda figured there wasn't much at stake other than demon titanite or somesuch, but I was mostly concerned that I had to progress past them to reach a necessary room/staircase/elevator and that I'd be screwing myself by searching around elsewhere for too long.

I was using the luring technique already but somehow always managed to get myself taken out in one way or another. I can always use Magic Weapon for a combat boost but it takes so much time just to get a proper opening on them sometimes that the spell is almost useless. This is definitely one case in which being an archer would be fantastic.

Speaking of archers, I have to ask: Since sources for arrows are sooo scarce, how many goddamn arrows do archer builds have to stock up on when they get the chance to? I'd have to imagine they'd be buying hundreds at a time. As far as I remember, the Burg merchant is still the only source I've seen for them at this point in the game. It's actually nice that they made arrows so hard to come by, keeps the melee intense and precludes the softball safe-from-a-distance plinkfest.

Did you fix it using xpadder or x360ce? It's mandatory if you're going to fix the camera controls. I played the game for hours before I fixed it, and it made it much more playable.

The zombie lady in the Lower Burg sells poison arrows, Starmere. Very useful. I believe Andre sells some too.

Ahh, yes, the "moss wench." I tend to forget about her. As for Andre, I thought I remembered he did, but a long time ago when I went back to him to stock up on arrows I was dismayed to find that he didn't sell any . Maybe it's because I'm a real big adult and fighting the good fight on pre-patch

It just occurred to me that if you've got dung pies in your inventory that basically implies you're lugging around a sack of shit constantly. Gritty realism indeed. "Ooh, looks like there's danger up ahead. Here, let me just take a scoop from my shit bag... so glad I carry this with me..."

I used to think there was a point to putting things into the bottomless box, but then I realized that your inactive inventory is weightless. Any hypothetical dung bag would easily be dwarfed by the house-sized bag of random (figurative) shit you're also carrying around. So much for realism.

I like keeping things in the bottomless box, allows me to carry my three weapons, rings, and armor sets I use, with quick change. Useful for PvP to carry lightly.

So I finally started playing this game and I'm enjoying it. It hasn't blown me away or anything like I expected it to thanks to the internet hype, but it's a great game nonetheless.

So far I've killed the first two bosses plus the Moonlight Butterfly and am currently in the Catacombs. The internet tells me it's not a good idea go there just yet but I'm not having too hard a time. Going to try and clear this area and then go to lower Undead Burg. Going for a strength build with heavy armor and shield as I always do in RPG's. I might even get my shit together and study for my Land Law final on Tuesday instead of playing this damn game.

Maybe it'll blow you away more if you don't use a guide...

Not really. I only consulted the internet out of sheer frustration when a pack of skeletons decided they didn't want to stay dead. That's when I found out most people leave that area for last.

Besides that I've been trying not to look anything up, just to get the 'full' experience. But it can be seriously tempting when games like this or Minecraft are loaded with mechanics they barely bother explaining (if at all). And don't tell me it's just a matter of exploring, learning from death, reading item descriptions etc. because I do all that and I still have no clue what (e.g.) covenants are. Hoping that my exact query is answered during a loading screen and that I have time to read it isn't really a feasible strategy either.

But that's not really why I'm not blown away. Can't really explain why to be honest. After all, one of my favorite games of all time (System Shock 2) doesn't do a great job explaining things either. I don't play a whole lot of RPG's so I don't have much to compare Dark Souls to. As its own game it is incredibly immersive, well-crafted and highly enjoyable, but it'd hardly make it into my top 15.

EDIT: It goes without saying that this opinion is subject to change. There's plenty of game ahead of me.

Now that I know I have to kill the Necromancers, the whole affair has gotten roughly 0.5% easier.