GWYN LORD OF CINDER IS NO MORE

Did you have to hack his butt a lot? I keep hoping the later bosses won't all feature their ass as their strategic target area. Doesn't exactly resound in consonance with the mythic nature of the game, hacking huge butts.

Nah, just parries and striking during his big openings. These kids were right, too: heavy armor is useless.

Well, I've made a start on the game. Knowing sweet fuck all about the skills and classes, I decided to go with Wanderer because it seems statistically well-balanced, and I've always loved the look of scimitars, so yeah. I think it was a wise choice for a first time player, as I've been doing okay with the combat system, but if I have made a huge error, Morrigan will be quick to inform me, I'm sure. I'm sticking with my decision, however. I've died once though, to an undead armoured warrior guarding a locked door. Was having a go at the timed parry and screwed it up, but alas. Now I'm up to the first bonfire in Lordran. The keyboard controls are very wonky, but I think I'll get used to them in time.

I'm liking the combat system though. YouTube videos don't do it justice, not to actually play it. I think I'm going to enjoy it immensely, since my favourite melee system of all-time is Gothic 2's, and this seems somewhat similar in style.

Wanderer was my first class in both Demon's and Dark Souls.

Sadly in Dark Souls 2 it's gone, but it's apparently replaced by the Swordsman, if starting stats and gear are anything to go by. So... swordsman it is!

Is anybody besides me going to the midnight release of Titanfall tomorrow so they could get DS2 instead? I'm retardedly fucking pumped.

Man, people are so bad at this game. I know everyone starts somewhere and all but geez, some players just have zero common sense.

So after doing everything except the last boss with my SL1, I decided to invade the Undead Parish a bit. Now, I'm not a "dickwraith", I don't use OP gear or anything. I use an unupgraded hand axe (one-hand r1 do about 25-30 damage on these players, backstabs do about 130 damage, that's more than fair I think) and a crossbow+3 (hits harder, about 110 a hit, but crossbows suck, are easy to avoid and have crappy reload times, easy to punish), and I of course don't heal. If I see a player really doing piss poor damage but who isn't healing, I sometimes even take off some armour to even the odds. Basically, I want to give new players a challenge, and spice up their game a bit, but I want to give them a chance. I also play rather derpily, mostly spamming my weapon like an idiot, making little effort to avoid their attacks. And yet...

Some win. After chugging about 5 estus, mind you, but they can still manage. But others... man. No common sense, no sense of strategy or anything. They'll stupidly spam the pyromancer's fireball, or the sorcerer's soul arrow, even after being interrupted by my crossbow three times in a row. It's like they don't get that after failing 3 times at one tactic, they should try something else? Others will run towards the enemies. Now I get that seeing a red invader can be a "oh shit" moment and they can get a moment of panic, but how is running straight into a horde of enemies going to help? Even worse is when I patiently wait for the players to kill the enemies they're fighting before engaging them (I never ambush, I even wave/bow and don't even care if they rush me while I do, I don't blame them for being wary) and instead of taking advantage of my generosity, they rush straight at me. Sometimes I'll just dance around and dodge while they stupidly attack me and get hit from behind by a Hollow soldier, and I'll even circle around that enemy and then retreat away to give them space to fight... and they'll still run after me. At one point I literally did nothing but stand there while the idiot got murdered by Hollows. Others will chug estus right in my face, like I'll just stand there instead of swinging my axe to interrupt it. Others will spam on my shield, get parried, rinse repeat. They don't get that if they attack with the same timing all the time they'll get parried, they don't try varying the tempo of their strikes. So sad.

Sometimes players do take advantage of the leeway I give them and they go kill the enemies while I wait, so I observe them, and it's awful how bad some players are, even at PvE. They play this game like it's God of War. Shield-broken all the time, no stamina management, chug estus at the wrongest moment and get killed, wail like idiots on the Hollow soldier shields... geez. Try kicking. Try parrying. Try backstabbing. Try blocking, then attacking the stunned enemy. Try luring them one by one. Nope, gotta spam like morons. lol....

A few were obviously not morons though. I liked those who tried parries and backstabs on me. One dude parried me like three times the entire fight. We were both at a sliver of health when he dodged one hit and unfortunately rolled off the cliff xD made for a funny end to an otherwise pretty good fight. One even successfully kicked me off the cliff, I laughed out loud at that (I then did the same to another player later). But others were so pitiful that I ran off the cliff myself because killing them would feel like I'm kicking a baby. This one player would run around the unlit bonfire in obvious confusion, or try to cross a fog gate, not understanding that he can't rest at the bonfire during multiplayer. Obviously his very first time playing online. I can't imagine why anyone would find it fun to invade these players with lightning weapons and OHKO them. Ugh.

One time I fought this guy who bowed back, and he had a great scythe on him. So he knew where to get it in the Catacombs, it wasn't his first time playing. He'd often go up on a ledge and turtle there, so to lure him out I'd cast a fireball and sure enough he'd roll back down. At some point I did that, but didn't see he had accidentally aggro'ed a nearby Hollow, and so he probably panicked and mistimed his roll and got OHKOed by my fireball. Oops... I felt kind of bad. Then he messaged me saying "really? lol". I felt bad so I apologized, explained I was just trying to lure him out and didn't think the fireball would actually hit him, and offered to be a white phantom for him and maybe kill his Drake if he wanted to. He accepted and we ended up cooping the entire level. He told me he had played the game before but only offline and never beat it, and he got the PC version recently so he still felt noobish. So my accidental Dickwraithing turned into a session of Jolly Cooperation.

Well Morrigan, I'm initiated. I just witnessed first hand how this game has earned its reputation. I've been playing for around 4 and a half hours now, and about an entire half of that has been battling the Taurus Demon and his troops, and absolutely nothing else. By my guess, I fought it around a dozen or so times, and had racked up 15,000 souls after the last retrieval from all of his troops I killed every time I had to cut my way through to him. I tried a variety of strategies. First off, I did a jump attack off the tower, but I found it a goddamn nightmare to get past him on the battlements, and even when I did, getting back up the ladder in time before getting hit seemed impossible. Then I tried fighting him on top of the tower, though I quickly learned my shield was useless and my evading difficult. Eventually, I just deposited all of my unneeded equipment at the bonfire (still need to find someone to sell all this shit too) and charged forth again as light as possible. Well, as luck would have it, "Weapon at risk!" for fuck sake. Oh well.

Long story short, I came to realise the effectiveness of ranged weapons, firebombs in particular. With that knowledge, I also learned which attacks I can dodge left or right and hit him with my sword, and which I have to leap back, and counter with a firebomb. It was tense, but I finally nailed the fucker. Felt very glorious indeed. Such satisfaction isn't a feeling I've had from many games, so kudos there.

Anyway, now I have stocked up on firebombs, throwing knives and some misc equipment, leveled up a shit tonne and plan on crossing those ramparts again and advancing further into the fortress. It occurred to me that I could give up and head in some other areas, but all seemed pretty bleak. One area of the castle was guarded by a rather tough warrior in complete armour and a cloak. I assume the guy is a commander of the common troops or something? Anyway, I fought him a few times but he is quite valiant and steadfast, so yeah. Then there is the graveyard by the first bonfire (Firelink Shrine, I think it's called) but I only encountered the skeletons there once and they seemed mighty dangerous. That leaves Blighttown, which doesn't sound like a barrel of fun at all.

But, I killed the Taurus Demon, so all is well. For now.

My friend did exactly this. I'm getting mine today, I plan on beating it without dying once

BSS: when you talk about "a rather tough warrior in complete armour and a cloak", are you thinking about this guy?

EDIT: new trailer, with added Jethro Tull goodness, to boot!

lol, good luck
There's a trophy for dying for the first time now. The title is "Welcome to Dark Souls". xD I'm tempted to turn on the trophy notification back just to see this and have a chuckle.

After I get all the other trophies I will commit suicide and get that one

Possibly. I don't think he had a scutum shield. I think it was either a kite or Norman shield. Similar looking armour, though. He was guarding a hallway at the bottom of the tower that leads to the Taurus Demon. Strangely, his sentry duty had him facing the opposite direction. I guess he thought the common troops at his back would be enough to keep intruders out from across the ramparts (they did have a solid firebomb killzone). In any case, I tried backstabbing him, but alas, I could not.

Oooooh, you mean the Black Knight! Yeah, there's not much of a point in facing him now. He's just guarding a rather useless ring, really. Go back to him once you're a bit stronger, if you want. He might drop a rather good weapon for you.

So yesterday I watched my friend trying to beat a Dark Souls 2 boss for about five hours. I guess this is a good thing.

Made it to the second boss, died after a few hours but it was a good run! I went deprived and it was quite a bitch early on just to get my stats up enough to wield a weapon effectively. So far all the weapons seem to be leaning towards strength, I currently have 7 str and 12 dex using a weak ass mail breaker. Not sure if dex weapons are going to be as OP in this one or only do high dmg with backstab/riposte? Anyone a little further who can say if there's a big differences in the weapon types from DS1? The great scythe was always my favorite weapon before.

I think we should make a new thread for Dark Souls II...?

Seconded!

I'm getting it Friday :3 I can't wait to be exactly like the guys who came to this thread - completely lost in a new world, getting accustomed to every little nuance...UGH. I'm frothing.

I'm gonna get DS2 when it's up for 15 bucks on Steam next year.

I'll try to get it as soon as it hits the shelves here. I'll also see if I can the DLC, in the meantime. I'm broke

That would be nice, so that there aren't any spoilers in the game for those still playing the first, but yet to play the second (especially considering the PC release is a month after the console release).

Prolly. And to answer my own question just buy a Falchion if you're going with a dex build.

On my current Dex build I am enjoying using the Balder Side Sword. I like the moveset but I'm going to have to get my dexterity up a bit before it really does damage. Got it at +5 and just finished the Depths.

So I may have come to the conclusion that ghosts are my least favourite enemy in any game, ever. *skips New Londo entirely and heads right for Blighttown*.

Ghosts aren't too bad. Skeleton beasts are much worse.

Psh, my black knight greatsword flips those stupid skeleton beasts right over. Man, that two-handed power attack is satisfying.

Skeleton beasts are pretty agonizing to meet, yes, but if you can stick to their sides, they aren't as dangerous.

Been going back to PVP. I still haven't managed to defeat anyone, but I can at least put up a fight now I also got summoned in Lost Izalith to help with the Bed of Chaos. We destroyed both of the orbs, and I was only some branches away from the core when the wooden bitch suddenly fried me to death Seriously, that thing is pretty much the only badly designed boss in the game. The Four Kings might be infuriating, but at least they aren't cheap and boring.

I haven't been following how far you are, but didn't you start a week ago? 'Cause you'll eventually have to go back to New Londo for mandatory progressing. Let's just say it's "nice" when it's flooded. Unflooded New Londo is to me the creepiest place in the game.

All of Lost Izalith is pretty janky, especially the endless marathon of those one-shottable lizard maggot things, and the dragon-asses that won't even attack you if you stick to the path (apparently they were much more aggro-y before a patch.) Quite a shame, because you'd think a hell dimension would be pretty hard to fuck up in a game that focuses on surreal gothic horror, and the Demon Ruins looked like they were leading to something really neat. Bed of Chaos probably would have been harder if you had to take out all its weak points in one go; I beat it in a couple tries just through brute force.

Yeah, on my way to Blighttown to ring the second bell. About 9 hours in, I believe, and deaths that can not easily be counted by even the greatest and wisest of scribes. But yeah, New Londo is indeed creepy. Very atmospheric, and I really enjoy the mood of the place, but I just hate the ghosts. The way they can move through the walls mostly. Can't stand that shit. I've been pretty successful against most of them using firebombs, but there's one area where many of them just ambush you through walls and shit in a tight interior, and it's hard to withdraw safely due to very narrow walkways. I definitely think I'll be skipping it until I'm strong enough to withstand their abuse.

For sure it's annoying until you're leveled enough to swipe them in a couple hits. Unflooded New Londo makes you wish it was flooded again, and there's no close save points beside Firelink or up the elevator from the VoD. Just eerie darkness with one annoying sword-enemy and another that reminds me of a boss from the original DMC, and Chasm of the Abyss isn't any better but at least the point of that is to get in and get out.

So is the PC port worth playing? Is it pretty similar to the console versions in its controls/handling and whatnot?

It's pretty fucking clunky, but I've gotten alright with it by now. There's a couple of patches/mods you're going to need, which I can list if wanted, and it'll take a couple of hours to get used to how it handles with keyboard+mouse, but once you've gotten a feel for it and how it works, then it handles well enough. I may be wrong, but I think the game is clunky by design. Seems so, at least.

I mean, I can use a gamepad, hahah.

But yeah that's what I'm wondering, because I played it on PC for a few minutes and it seemed clunky. Is that just how the game plays in general, on console as well? I could get used to it, but if it's just the port, nnnn...

I was under the impression that poor keyboard+mouse optimisation was the main problem with the port. There are some other small issues which are easily fixed with a patch called "DSfix". If you're going to use a controller, then I'd imagine any other issues past that won't affect you greatly. At least, all the problems I've had so far is just getting used to the controls and the odd way they're all setup (something which is being fixed for the PC port of Dark Souls II, apparently ).

Started a new character, and I've gotten quite better at PVP as it is. Invaded four people, and killed all four No tricks and no highly upgraded weapons (I've just started this new character), mind you. Just good, old-fashioned duels*. Also engaged in some jolly cooperation while exploring the Burg and the Parish once again. Quite fun, indeed

*Damn, Morrigan was right about some people not knowing how to play this game. Out of the four players, two were reasonably good; looking for opportunities to parry me, making use of the environment, etc. The other two, however, were rather pitiful. One was running around like a decapitated chicken, randomly taking wild shots at me (depleting his stamina bar in the process) and exposing his back all the time, while the other one had no qualms about chucking estus right in front of me. Hell, I think that I got him to use it all up

They're learning the ropes, dude. Cut 'em some slack.

You are wrong. It's not clunky at all with a controller. It's your fault for playing with a shitty kb/m.