Dark Souls

[bhodi]

Sorry, darkroot, yeah. Basically, you kill havel, walk outside and then run around and collect items. There are two sets of good armor there (elite knight set & stone set) which you can get to just by being careful. I actually knew the way so after I had gotten astora's short sword and the shield from the valley of the drakes (down from firelink then over) I worked my way from havel's tower down to darkroot basin's bonfire and then back up; I actually killed the hydra and moonlight butterfly and took the waterfall ladder around and cleared out darkroot before I went back to kill capra wearing half stone half elite knight set because I hated it so much.

Because I was/am going faith, I got the divine ember from moonlight and then got and upgraded a claymore to divine once I got it in the burg, and then used the eagle shield from blighttown. I'm doing pretty well. I was streaming and some folks watching me led me through / mentioned a few other things I could have done right at the start, I went for the compartively sucky astora's sword when I could have just gotten the gravelord sword, for example.

[Yegolev]

http://www.twitch.tv/logothx/c/1741213

I love this game.

Heh, that guy helped the arrow vendor buy his first vacation home.

Edit to say that I suddenly realized that I have a lot of things to do in this game that are not Sen's Fortress.

[Nightblade]

http://www.twitch.tv/logothx/c/1741213

I love this game.

Heh, that guy helped the arrow vendor buy his first vacation home.

Edit to say that I suddenly realized that I have a lot of things to do in this game that are not Sen's Fortress.

Arrows? I prefer nudity to solve my problems. (As in, since he one shots me anyway I stripped naked to get extra speed and just outmanuevered / killed him)

[apocrypha]

Being sans-internet for the last 2 weeks I ended up having to kill the Capra demon solo. Took me about 25 goes. I was elated when I finally managed it!

Now I'm going to try for the Gaping Dragon. Had a couple of attempts that weren't too bad, I think I just need to learn the timings better to stay out of his frontal attack area. Good job it turns so slowly :)

[Job601]

Being sans-internet for the last 2 weeks I ended up having to kill the Capra demon solo. Took me about 25 goes. I was elated when I finally managed it!

Now I'm going to try for the Gaping Dragon. Had a couple of attempts that weren't too bad, I think I just need to learn the timings better to stay out of his frontal attack area. Good job it turns so slowly :)

I killed the Capra demon on my second try using the aoe attack on a +3 halberd to kill the dogs.  The gaping dragon took me about fifteen tries, though.

[Nightblade]

Being sans-internet for the last 2 weeks I ended up having to kill the Capra demon solo. Took me about 25 goes. I was elated when I finally managed it!

Now I'm going to try for the Gaping Dragon. Had a couple of attempts that weren't too bad, I think I just need to learn the timings better to stay out of his frontal attack area. Good job it turns so slowly :)

I killed the Capra demon on my second try using the aoe attack on a +3 halberd to kill the dogs.  The gaping dragon took me about fifteen tries, though.

Gaping dragon? Really? I killed him on the second try, at times he literally just stands there with his ass in your face letting you hit him.

[Margalis]

Hardest boss for me was a semi-secret one:


I'm not sure if maybe I went back there too early in terms of items and levels.

Also for a while I was wearing armor that was heavy enough to make my movement/rolling slow without realizing it.

[Muffled]

For the Gaping Dragon make sure you're at minimum encumbrance, naked is fine.  No armor you have at that point will actually let you go toe to toe with him any way.  Then just learn his animations and don't be there when the attacks happen.


edit: Because knowledge is power: below 25% of your weight limit is minimum encumbrance.  50% and 75% are similar plateaus. 

[jakonovski]

Has anyone else discovered that this game is just too heavy to play on weeknights? Gonna take a while, only playing this on weekends.

[jakonovski]

Fuck yeah, I killed the Capra! The catalyst spear one shotted the dogs and then the Capra got all confused and I was able to kite him while blasting Great Soul Arrows in his face.

Now I'm exploring the sewers, a confusing place to say the least. I fell down a hole and it took me like half an hour to find my way out. How do you fight the giant rat btw, there always seems to be a grate in the way.

[apocrypha]

Well done with the Capra demon :)

The sewers are very confusing yeah. Watch out for the basilisks (frogs), their steam cloud thing is potentially very nasty. I cheesed the giant rat by plinking arrows into it through the gap at the top of the grate and then later on found a way in to loot the corpse... can't remember where exactly :/

[jakonovski]

Thanks, it felt pretty good. 

The basilisks are pretty easy, as I found the curse resistant Crimson Robes along with the catalyst.

[Margalis]

I haven't gone to Anor Londo yet. I did this boss before Gaping Dragon I think, or maybe right afterwards. I probably tried 20+ times. I think I finally beat him with a combination of figuring out my armor was too heavy, learning his attacks better and swapping in some magic resist gear.

Edit: basilisks are easy but if you do get cursed it really really sucks. I got cursed once and that put the fear of god in me.

[Nightblade]

Stray demon isn't so bad. Use light armor and just stay behind or beside him during his explosion attack. Once you get the rhythm down it's a piece of cake.

[Pagz]

http://www.darksoulsii.com/

!!!

[Falconeer]

This makes me happy in ways I can't put into words. I was thinking about Dark Souls the other day, and how deeply into it I was exactly one year ago. And how sad I was that it would have been years before I could even hope for a sequel. And here it is. Literally best gaming news for me since, well, Dark Souls.

[jakonovski]

Seems like I should quote my post from the useless gaming news thread:

Dark Souls 2 is coming!

[Dark Souls II] will be more straightforward and more understandable.

There's already a huge slapfight over it on Neogaf: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=503292

[Falconeer]

I share the fear. New director is NEVER good when the old one is responsible for achieving the impossible. If the new directors' first words speak of something that belongs to "any other game", how can we not be worried that this won't be what the two previous DS have been? It's not that I don't want to be able to understand things better, it's just that I know this will be different. Good different? I would be the happiest, but my money are on "no".

[Morfiend]

I share the fear. New director is NEVER good when the old one is responsible for achieving the impossible. If the new directors' first words speak of something that belongs to "any other game", how can we not be worried that this won't be what the two previous DS have been? It's not that I don't want to be able to understand things better, it's just that I know this will be different. Good different? I would be the happiest, but my money are on "no".

I'm terrified. The ambiguity of the first two really added to the feeling of mystery and exploration. Making the game easier to understand would really take away part of what makes the franchise so amazing.

[apocrypha]

Sounds like an attempt to widen the appeal, which unfortunately will probably result in diluting the magic potion.

It must be a dilemma for From because every single review of Dark/Demons Souls goes to great lengths to say how harsh, brutal, unforgiving, difficult, hardcore the game is, which will alienate a huge number of people. The opacity of the games is a large part of the difficulty, but also what makes them what they are.

[schild]

I'm not worried because the first game probably never should've existed anyway. Gamers got lucky.

[Fabricated]

Kinda hoping they release a screenshot with a radial menu in it so I can watch some game forums self-immolate.

Personally I think the series could do with better explanations of what stats do and less hidden stats.

For example, resistance is a stupid stat that you shouldn't waste souls on, and poise is a "hidden" stat that shouldn't be hidden. You have fucking items like the wolf ring that reference poise but no explanation of what it is.  Having to read a wiki to understand how just about anything works isn't a great feature.

[Falconeer]

Yeah, that's not what scares me. And I wouldn't mind a less anticlimatic ending. But changing director means changing much more than that. Basically, you are inevitably messing with the style, the mood, and who knows what else. Which is much much more important than any stupid stat in D*Souls.

[Fabricated]

I imagine DS2 will be a bit more linear, have a more hand-holdy exposition laced story, and probably some sort of combat/stat/inventory overhauls that will put people who liked the last two games into a snit but I imagine they'll still nail the difficulty/play style overall.

[jakonovski]

I dunno, From Software's games are all over the place and I fear the Souls series merely stumbled on their magic formula.

[Pagz]

On the subject of the last boss:


Edit:

Just beat the game. Good ending.

Totally agree.

[bhodi]

I beat it, and I had the exact same feeling about the ending. I was informed that the story is told through item descriptions. What the fuck?

I was also expecting a final dungeon of sorts after going down the 4 paths, not walking directly into the end boss and having beaten it 10 minutes later. But the zone was really cool looking, I wish they had done more with it.

Final verdict: Fun, and some creepy parts, especially tomb of the giants, but it's nothing compared to the terrified creepy jail of demon's souls. The bosses were less interesting and way more bullshit, like capra and half a dozen variations of big guy in a small room. I liked the bonfire system a lot more and I feel it made the world seem more real and connected, but I liked the "story" or at least the setting of demon's souls more.

It bumped me directly into NG+, and I've kept it installed and am doing small parts. My character continues to get stronger as I play NG+ since I'm using a BSS +15 and eagle shield with 30 faith and 16 INT for greater magic weapon / sunlight weapon; I spread out a lot of my points but since I pump them into dex my damage started scaling through the roof as I finished the game. I think I finished at SL 80 or so. I'd like to do painted world and the tree and the DLC zones that I never saw on my first play through.

[Nightblade]

[murdoc]

I know, I know... IGN link - but gameplay footage revealed and it looks a lot like Dark Souls.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/04/10/dark-souls-2-gameplay-reveal-coming

[Hawkbit]

Looks like Dark Souls.  Which is a very good thing. 

[schild]

Would rather it look like Demon's Souls.

[jakonovski]

Rise from the dead like a Catacombs skeleton!

I figured I'd continue my babbling here, seeing as how I've put 25 hours in this game over the last week.

I'm still afraid of Sen's Fortress, so last night I went and cleared the Catacombs (double crystal lizard ftw!) and one shotted Pinwheel (that was easy!). Raw Halberd +3 seems pretty excellent, allows me early damage and a chance to gather mats to upgrade something nice and two handed for divine damage later (perhaps BK axe or sword?). I did update a regular ass battleaxe to divine for catacombs, but it kinda sucks ass. Is there any way of getting at least some of the mats back? Doesn't really matter though, as I'm still flush with lewts from Snuggly.

Next up is something, maybe I can brave Sen's or give the Hydra a try. Any gear recommendations for a str/faith build at this point in the game?

[Arinon]

If your faith is high enough for Wrath of the Gods and you have a light source I'd risk Tomb of Giants far enough to rescue Rhea and buy that spell.  That area can be kind of annoying though if you go too early.

[murdoc]

Man, I hate the Tomb of the Giants. I made it through Sen's Fortress not too bad, but that place just kicked my ass for some reason.

[jakonovski]

Hrm, fought my way up Sen's, killed everything sans the boss and the basement and freed the wizard dude. Upgraded to Raw +5 and fools are going down. However, I seem to have triggered a bug with Siegmeyer as I forgot to talk to him outside since I did it on my first save that got nuked. Now he's just sitting in the boulder area and not talking to me.  

I also semi randomly killed Ceaseless Discharge, he's trivial to cheese using the small path forking off from the main combat arena. He just kept tentacling at me and I poked with the Halberd. Is the rest of Demon Ruins difficult? I boned out with my loot as soon as some sort of a gribbly started running at me.