From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Xi]

I certainly hope combat in DS is more involved than in DKS. That was a poster child for button mashing and potion spamming. I still don't get why Codex loves it so much.

You 100% cannot button mash your way through the game. This is not Dragon Knight Saga, Kingdoms of Amalur, or any other game that you can face-roll the keyboard to victory. By all means, try to do so, and report back to us with your frustration. You will just die an excessive amount of times, lose an excessive amount of souls (if you die without recovering souls, they are gone forever), and you will become impotent in combat player-skill development (which is important).

 

[deuxhero]

I really loved the game. It's a very skill based game with taking no damage very possible if you pay attention. The only thing that really strikes me as "cheap" are the bridge dragon the first time (and even then, even a fairly squishy build can take one hit from the blast and heal) and the crystal caves. Lock on is a bit of a pain, but really only applies to characters with heavy sorcerery/pyromancy use (like me...).

 

[Antagonist]

not really. (in PvE) damage reduction (while certainly not as irrelevant as in DeS) isn't that big of a deal, and considering good light armour has, on average, better elemental/magic defences at the expense of a bit of physical defence there's really only one reason to wear heavy armour: poise. and poise really matter only for big slow weapons to make landing hits a bit easier (particularly vs groups of enemies and/or fast attacking enemies).

I didn't do the math for the armors, my statements were purely empirical which is admittedly not the best basis for this discussion. I tried different armor configurations and had the impression that the really heavy armors (e.g. Havel) had noticeably higher damage reduction against melee compared to my standard armor (Gold hemmed, which I wore mostly for LARPing reasons). I guess in the end most players will end up using several different armor sets in PvE depending on the enemies and environment.

for the record, DeS had fast rolling with <50% load (and DkS does too if you sacrifice a ring slot)

Oh my, I should really shut up before I embarrass myself any further. To my (arguably weak) defense: It's been quite some time since I played DeS and I only remembered that I always tried to retain the maximum movement ability in both games. Since my memory for DkS is much fresher I assumed that this particular mechanics worked in the predecessor in an identical way.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

not my fault that you suck. it's very easy to stay <25% with a dex character with light armour and excellent defences/resistances, the eagle shield is stupidly light but there are plenty of good light-medium, parrying, ~3.0 weight shields anyway (even 66-70 stability will make the whole game a breeze).

You've never played a strength character? The lightest decent strength weapon stilll weighs 10, which is half your limit even with 40 endurance, and that's before we add in other useful things like bows or catalysts or a shield. I have no idea how you're even managing with lighter weapons, though, longsword+kite shield+wanderer's alone is still over the limit before you get 21 endurance. Any greatsword/katana+eagle shield+wanderer's is impossible without >40 endurance or weight limit boosters. You must be some sort of wizard or something.

 

[praetor]

not my fault that you suck. it's very easy to stay <25% with a dex character with light armour and excellent defences/resistances, the eagle shield is stupidly light but there are plenty of good light-medium, parrying, ~3.0 weight shields anyway (even 66-70 stability will make the whole game a breeze).

You've never played a strength character? The lightest decent strength weapon stilll weighs 10, which is half your limit even with 40 endurance, and that's before we add in other useful things like bows or catalysts or a shield. I have no idea how you're even managing with lighter weapons, though, longsword+kite shield+wanderer's alone is still over the limit before you get 21 endurance. Any greatsword/katana+eagle shield+wanderer's is impossible without >40 endurance or weight limit boosters. You must be some sort of wizard or something.

jesus. tittyfucking. christ. with 14 End + Ring of Favor and Protection (there's really no reason not to use it right away): full wanderer + uchi + heater shield (and a pyro flame). 14 friggin endurance. swap around some wanderer gear for some tattered cloth and at 28 end (and maybe even lower) you can have an eagle shield with a friggin claymore or bastard sword or what have you at 6.0 weight and have weight to spare for a talisman or the oolacile catalyst (or stick with the heater shield and you can have your precious manserpent sword or a zwei. both str weapons that don't really need poise to use them effectively in PvE. especially the MSGS). you're not really good with numbers, are you?

EDIT: @40end, even without the DWGR (but why would you do that...), you have 24.0 weight to keep <25%. considering the best str weapons weigh 10-11 (okay, the BK Gaxe is 16.0.. but that's not really a pure str weapon and requires a separate build to use it effectively), that leaves you with 13-14 weight for catalyst/tail, shield and armour. considering you'll want the stamina regen since your heavy weapons eat it up, you'll likely have the grasscrest shield. that means 10-11 weight for catalyst/tail + armour. more than enough

 

[Cassidy]

console players of the Codex

Nobody sane buys a console for only one game.

Those who do enjoy a significant part of the games available for it, which usually means they love either popamole or JRPGs.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I always used weight limit boosters. Way better than any of the other rings. Only ring that really comes close is Wolf ring. And even with shitty endurance, Havel's + RoFaP gives you a lot of room. Even on Str characters I was usually under 25%.

Though my first character was pretty much just an End build anyways, I went from Astora's Longsword > Lightning Spear > Demon Spear. I ended up cranking str enough to use a greatshield and dex enough for the demon spear. So I could also one hand greatswords and shit anyways. I even raised faith enough to use the homeward spell.

Most important armor stats for PVE are curse/toxic resist anyways. Armor makes a bigger difference if your base defense is low (low stats/no humanity) but still, even in full stone giant armor, you're pretty much fucked trying to tank anything that would have staggered you without 40+ poise. Assuming you're not worrying about efficiency of your estus flasks, cranking HP is probably better than weight limit for more armor.

On a side note, Grass Crest shield is fucking amazing. The extra stamina regen is amazing when you're blocking a lot and pushing your limits.

 

[praetor]

console players of the Codex

Nobody sane buys a console for only one game.

Those who do enjoy a significant part of the games available for it, which usually means they love either popamole or JRPGs.

define "significant". is 5 enough? 10? 15? after how many games does a console become a good purchase?

 

[Wyrmlord]

console players of the Codex

Nobody sane buys a console for only one game.

Those who do enjoy a significant part of the games available for it, which usually means they love either popamole or JRPGs.

Buy a console for a relative as a birthday gift.

Play the one or two odd console games that interest you.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

EDIT: @40end, even without the DWGR (but why would you do that...), you have 24.0 weight to keep <25%. considering the best str weapons weigh 10-11 (okay, the BK Gaxe is 16.0.. but that's not really a pure str weapon and requires a separate build to use it effectively), that leaves you with 13-14 weight for catalyst/tail, shield and armour. considering you'll want the stamina regen since your heavy weapons eat it up, you'll likely have the grasscrest shield. that means 10-11 weight for catalyst/tail + armour. more than enough

I dunno, I still think people might want to use armour that gives poise. Or greatshields other than eagle, or a crossbow for range, or a demon's greataxe/machete (why would you use a zwei on a strength build?). Or the BKGA, obviously, though I guess you admitted that you didn't have a way to use that. Staying under 25% is pretty restrictive, especially since the medium roll really isn't that bad. And since the DWGR is so good and makes it pointless anyway.

 

[Kylearan]

On a side note, Grass Crest shield is fucking amazing. The extra stamina regen is amazing when you're blocking a lot and pushing your limits.

Of course, the shield is actually kind of crappy for blocking because it doesn't fully block physical damage and it has shit stability; but it IS great to wear if you use two-handed weapons for the stamina regen.

 

[praetor]

EDIT: @40end, even without the DWGR (but why would you do that...), you have 24.0 weight to keep <25%. considering the best str weapons weigh 10-11 (okay, the BK Gaxe is 16.0.. but that's not really a pure str weapon and requires a separate build to use it effectively), that leaves you with 13-14 weight for catalyst/tail, shield and armour. considering you'll want the stamina regen since your heavy weapons eat it up, you'll likely have the grasscrest shield. that means 10-11 weight for catalyst/tail + armour. more than enough

I dunno, I still think people might want to use armour that gives poise. Or greatshields other than eagle, or a crossbow for range, or a demon's greataxe/machete (why would you use a zwei on a strength build?). Or the BKGA, obviously, though I guess you admitted that you didn't have a way to use that. Staying under 25% is pretty restrictive, especially since the medium roll really isn't that bad. And since the DWGR is so good and makes it pointless anyway.

huh? where did i say that? i have a build specifically for the BKGA. but the average person making a str build won't have the dex to wield it

you may use whatever you want, the fact remains that the medium roll is much worse than the fast roll (not to mention the ninjaflip), greatshields other than eagle are a waste of stats (with maaaaaaybe the exception for Havel's because of his infinite poise special ability), crossbows other than avelyn are a waste of EQ load, poise in PvE isn't important unless you're dumb, and demon's gaxe is a shitty weapon (unless you're a 100% backstab fisher in PvP) because the gaxes have a crappy moveset and it weighs way too much compared to the competition (especially considering the damage. a regular gaxe has a better moveset, a little less damage and half the weight... and unless you're really lucky it's acquired much sooner and later on can be purchased). and why wouldn't i use a zwei on a str build? it outdamages the best "pure str" greatsword in the game (man-serpent) while having more range, same weight and stat reqs, has an awesome R2, breaks the most poise (most enemies have poise as well), can be used unlocked very effectively, is found very early on, has ridiculously low stat requirements and very good range. sure, optimally it's best used on a "quality" build to take full advantage of that little dex scaling, but if you're making a quality build just for the zwei... and all things considered, the only thing that comes close is the large club

 

[bminorkey]

What I'd love to hear is some genuine criticisms from someone that actually played the game

I played this game and think it's the best thing that has ever been done for console gaming. Out of two friends of mine that played this game, one of them absolutely loves it, and the other thought it was decent, but not especially praiseworthy. His criticisms were:

- Plot is vague and intentionally obscured. The only way to figure out what's going on is by doing things in a very unusual order, reading item descriptions and acting on them, and finding a lot of 'easter eggs' of sorts (like

Spoiler

Dark Anor Londo

or

Spoiler

Kaathe

.
- Multiplayer element rendered inaccessible because (a) summoning is unreliable, (b) you get invaders (players invading your world looking to kill you) a /lot/, and very often they will be twinks who use endgame, cheap gear (c) a lot of networking issues (blame Microsoft and Sony). Message signs are kind of useless. [I agree with this for the most part, but on the bright side, PvP in this game is extremely enjoyable when your opponent is a sport. And helping other people is fun.]
- Character build is extremely easy to screw up. While there are in theory a lot of possibilities for customization, in practice you /need/ to use certain gimmick items and invest in stats in a specific way to make your character viable for multiplayer [This is true. In PvP, most players will take this to the extreme and use any gimmick they can get to increase their chances of success. You can usually recognize players who either have actual skills or will have actual skills by how much they stray from the tried-and-true Family Mask+BKGA+Giant's Gear+Greatshield and its equivalents.]
- Shields are overpowered. Make the game too easy when utilized correctly. [This is blatantly false for all bosses and the later game areas, but he quit before he got to them.]
- High difficulty mostly centered on memorization and pattern recognition. [Memorization is virtually /required/ for some areas, but in my opinion, it is mostly avoidable if you are a cautious player with good decision making skills. The upside of this is that you can actually get through the game very, very quickly once you master the mechanics and tricks, making it very viable to try out new characters and builds.]
- Some things about the difficulty are a chore. For example, certain mobs/Bosses who can curse you and reduce your maximum HP by 1/2. The curse is semi-permanent (remains after death), and the only way to remove it is paying an exorbitant amount of souls to a merchant or travelling half the world through an extremely risky area to get to a healer. Well, there are a couple more ways to remove them, but most new players wouldn't know about that.

e- how do I inline spoilers?

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Well, I guess it's just opinions. We both agree there are plenty of heavy things that are useful, you just think that using most of them at once isn't worth slower rolls, and I do. I played Dark before Demon's, so I guess I got into the habit of just blocking everything instead of rolling. You know what shields in Dark Souls are like.

And you wouldn't use a zwei because you could use a demon great machete. Better damage, better strength scaling, no dexterity requirement. Needs 40 strength, but you were going there anyway. The only problem is the r2 kinda sucks.

 

[praetor]

- Multiplayer element rendered inaccessible because (a) summoning is unreliable, (b) you get invaders (players invading your world looking to kill you) a /lot/, and very often they will be twinks who use endgame, cheap gear (c) a lot of networking issues (blame Microsoft and Sony). Message signs are kind of useless. [I agree with this for the most part, but on the bright side, PvP in this game is extremely enjoyable when your opponent is a sport. And helping other people is fun.]

a) fixed with the patch (but far from optimal because of c)), b) it was makes the game fun, that constant fear that even you're good in PvE you can easily be murdered by an invader so you're constantly on your toes (btw, griefers are really only a problem very early on (until blighttown) and are easily circumvented by staying hollow. and the early areas are easy enough that it shouldn't give you much trouble. not to mention that a good 90% of the griefers are terrible players and you can kill them with a bit of practice), c) blaming Sony or M$ is retarded. the networking issues are because of the crappy p2p system. that's something Bamco insisted on implementing, 'cause From wanted dedicated servers like in DeS

- Character build is extremely easy to screw up. While there are in theory a lot of possibilities for customization, in practice you /need/ to use certain gimmick items and invest in stats in a specific way to make your character viable for multiplayer [This is true. In PvP, most players will take this to the extreme and use any gimmick they can get to increase their chances of success. You can usually recognize players who either have actual skills or will have actual skills by how much they stray from the tried-and-true Family Mask+BKGA+Giant's Gear+Greatshield and its equivalents.]

also not quite true. it was most certainly very true in DeS where everybody sported the same 4-5 viable builds and the same 4-5 useful weapons, but in DkS there's much much more variation (in theory you have lots of possible customization... as you do in practice since you can make up for certain items with a different stat distribution and alternative items). little or no "gimmick" items are used (i'm not sure if either you or your friend understand what "gimmick" means). the only problems are that: a) the ninja-flipping is so much better than any other rolling that not using the DWGR is simply retarded b) the MoM gives too much health (and it's really light) so it's really the only sensible option as headgear, with the only moderately decent alternative being the Dusk Crown, c) poise is kinda unbalanced. there's literally no reason to have less than 53 (and that's why you'll see a lot of players with giant chest+hands since it's the most weight-efficient method for reaching that breakpoint). MoM+Giants is most definitely not a sign of low skill, but using a greatshield most definitely is

and "character build is easy to screw up" is bad thing now? should we reward player for being stupid?

- Shields are overpowered. Make the game too easy when utilized correctly. [This is blatantly false for all bosses and the later game areas, but he quit before he got to them.]

generalizing as "all shields" is definitely false, but there are a couple that make the game way too easy (the Eagle shield being easily the most OP item in the whole PvE game)

- High difficulty mostly centered on memorization and pattern recognition. [Memorization is virtually /required/ for some areas, but in my opinion, it is mostly avoidable if you are a cautious player with good decision making skills. The upside of this is that you can actually get through the game very, very quickly once you master the mechanics and tricks, making it very viable to try out new characters and builds.]

and what did he expect in a game with slow-paced combat? you learn the environments and the enemies, failing to do so results in death.

- Some things about the difficulty are a chore. For example, certain mobs/Bosses who can curse you and reduce your maximum HP by 1/2. The curse is semi-permanent (remains after death), and the only way to remove it is paying an exorbitant amount of souls to a merchant or travelling half the world through an extremely risky area to get to a healer. Well, there are a couple more ways to remove them, but most new players wouldn't know about that.

there's only one boss with curse and he's so easy, so late in the game and his curse build-up so slow that you'd have to be actively trying to be cursed. and the mobs are found in literally 2 small sections of only 2 areas in the whole game (one of which is hidden and entirely optional, while the other is easily skippable with the master key, or avoided once you know how to navigate the area) and they're one of the easiest enemies to kill and have literally only their one "curse cloud attack" that is very easy to avoid (and one more reason why fast>med roll :p). and 3k souls is "an exorbitant amount" now? wow.. with the least-time efficient and earliest farming method available (drake bridge) it takes you literally 2 and a half minutes to accumulate that amount

And you wouldn't use a zwei because you could use a demon great machete. Better damage, better strength scaling, no dexterity requirement. Needs 40 strength, but you were going there anyway. The only problem is the r2 kinda sucks.

first, forget about scaling. it's meaningless to look at that thing. just take a look at the raw damage output and forget about those damned letters. dex requirement of 10 is hardly relevant (especially considering bows require at least 12, as do many other excellent weapons that would serve as great backups as elementals. and only 3 out of 10 classes start with less than 10 dex, so the 1-2 point investment is really not worth even noting). 40 str to one-hand and a crappy moveset are very important minuses (especially the latter). it's also slower than the zwei so you cannot effectively combo. and it's almost double the weight. btw, because of the very steep diminishing returns and because all the "ultra"-sized weapons (ultra greatswords, greataxes etc...) are slow, passive weapons they're basically 2-handed only weapons, so going over 27 Str is only worth it only if the 1-handed moveset as good or better than the 2-handed (which isn't the case with either the DGM or Zwei.. really, the only big, heavy 10+ weight weapons with a worthwhile 1-handed moveset are the murakumo, BKGA and golem axe). so... why would i use the DGM over the zwei?

 

[bminorkey]

Mhm, [I entirely skimmed your response but] you're free to disagree. I don't agree with most of his points either. Whatever I put in the [ ] brackets is what I consider inarguable, but my disagreement runs deeper. That said - I think his perspective is genuine and legitimate, whatever we might think.

e- I think character builds being easy to screw up is a bad thing as well. It's hardly about being stupid - it's about not realizing how important endurance and vitality are early enough, for example, or about or justifiably thinking you might be able to play the game as a pure sorcerer once you get access to some more spells, or maybe as a bowman. The point being, making a lot of varied character builds possible is not really catering to the stupid audience.

And I do consider players who use Family Mask+Giant's to be a poor sport. The equipment is overused and overpowered - everyone uses it and there is nothing interesting about it. When a player is actually skilled it shows because his build is one that genuinely looks fun to play, not some minmaxed Lightning Zweihander stun abuse. This is not to say that there aren't any skilled Giant's users, but if there are, they should grow some balls to go with their skills and play a build that's genuinely creative, if not necessarily optimal (ever fought a Wanderer's Set-using Washing Pole/Whip White Dragon Breath user? Dual Knife-wielding Smough?). The ninja-flipping, FaP and Hornet rings are also completely ridiculous because they completely outclass any other possible choice. (The Hornet ring in particular encourages an extremely cheap style of play, although I'll admit it can be pretty fun running around naked and parrying/stabbing people).

And yeah I misused gimmick there, English isn't my native language, see? I meant 'items you gotta use because they're overpowered and cheap'.

 

[praetor]

it's about not realizing how important endurance and vitality are early enough, for example,

sorry, but that IS being stupid. how can you not realise that Vit and End are crucial if you were paying any kind of attention? i mean, "more HP = good" is self-explanatory, and if you were paying attention to the equipment or level-up screen or just during combat you'd have seen that having more stamina is a very good idea, as is having more equipment without hindering movement speed.

or about or justifiably thinking you might be able to play the game as a pure sorcerer once you get access to some more spells, or maybe as a bowman. The point being, making a lot of varied character builds possible is not really catering to the stupid audience.

but.. you can play as a pure sorcerer or a bowman. it's also very easy to do so. actually, in PvE playing pure caster is very OP. the only problem is that without an online calculator you cannot see the magadjust of cats/tails on the level-up screen so you cannot correctly gauge if putting one more point into int/fth is a good idea. it's also not obvious that, for example, fth has crap scaling 30-40, but it's very awesome 40-50. or that the "int" breakpoints are 44 and 47. those would be very valid complaints

And I do consider players who use Family Mask+Giant's to be a poor sport. The equipment is overused and overpowered - everyone uses it and there is nothing interesting about it. When a player is actually skilled it shows because his build is one that genuinely looks fun to play, not a minmaxed Lightning Zweihander stun competition. This is not to say that there aren't any skilled Giant's users, but if there are, they should grow some balls to go with their skills and play a build that's genuinely creative, if not necessarily optimal. The ninja-flipping, FaP and Hornet rings are also completely ridiculous because they completely outclass any other possible choice. (The Hornet ring in particular encourages an extremely cheap style of play, although I'll admit it can be pretty fun running around naked and parrying/stabbing people).

Hornet is known to be the most OP PvP item so it's very often banned from competitive play (and it's been banned by japanese "pro" players for a very long time). the only morally acceptable way to use hornet is for jumper/ganker hunting. bellowing dragoncrest is also an excellent ring since it boosts both sorceries and pyromancies, and is an excellent complement to the dusk crown making pyros like gcombust very powerful. the flip&flap rings are obvious choices because they provide greater mobility, stamina and health and so i (and others) can experiment much with stats and equipment choices 'cause i can more easily sacrifice points into End and/or Vit. and it's also why good players use both those rings and those specific armour combinations: for more creative freedom in stat and equip choice. just take a look at jumilaatori's builds (arguably one of the very best players in the world) over at the wikidot forums; you'll see that a lot of them are very similar in stat distribution but differ greatly in gameplay because of weapon/shield/spell/etc choice despite all of them using the same 2-3 rings and armour setup.

nobody is arguing that the game is balanced, because it isn't (and i've mentioned that before) and it could very easily be balanced much more properly with a few simple tweaks to most rings (for example: make DWGR work only for <25%, but make havel's work like the current DWGR except with fast roll instead of ninjaflip [this way no- or little-poise characters would have a small boost vs high-poise. or if you wanted both the flip and poise you'd either have to sacrifice both ring slots or a lot of points into End], reduce the dusk crown ring penalty to something like 10-15% HP instead of 50% [so you have another viable choice for pure casters.. that could be easily be offset by the mom's mask but that also means sacrificing the crow of dusk...], make the EWGR ring completely stop weapon degradation [and thus crystal weapons become awesome at the cost of a ring slot], give the tiny being ring health regen, give the cloranthy ring as much stamina regen as the grass, lingering dragoncrest boosts duration by 100% instead of 50, roll the slumbering and fog ring into one [but make the invisibility spell work like in DeS by making the player completely invisible after a certain distance], white seance ring gives 3 att slots, ring of the sun firstborn gives a 20-25% miracle boost, leo ring should be significantly better, ring of the evil eye could have the vampire effect lowered but it could work on successful hits instead of kills, etc...). problem is, if you balance the thing to work in the famous SL120 range, you're very likely unbalancing the other ranges and making the PvE easier

disclaimer: i never used any mask on any of my builds, never used the hornet ring, and never used more than one piece of giants armour :p

 

[Antagonist]

b) it was makes the game fun, that constant fear that even you're good in PvE you can easily be murdered by an invader so you're constantly on your toes (btw, griefers are really only a problem very early on (until blighttown) and are easily circumvented by staying hollow.

The alternative is to hard quit the game via the PS menu. The invader will be booted from your instance this way without any adverse effects to yourself (other than the lost time to load the game again). Allegedly this also works on the 360 but I have read that you can get some quite angry private messages from the invading players. I usually switched to offline mode whenever I wanted to protect my human form (i.e for kindling runs or boss fights) and didn't have the time or inclination to deal with PVP at that particular moment.

sorry, but that IS being stupid. how can you not realise that Vit and End are crucial if you were paying any kind of attention?

I concur. Even when I played DeS for the first time I quickly identified endurance and vitality as "dump stats", i.e. increasing those two whenever I had enough souls but was unsure what to do with the character overall.

 

[Xi]

 

[Whisky]

What I'd love to hear is some genuine criticisms from someone that actually played the game

- Plot is vague and intentionally obscured. The only way to figure out what's going on is by doing things in a very unusual order, reading item descriptions and acting on them, and finding a lot of 'easter eggs' of sorts

Actually, I really liked that part. It seemed like you actually had to look around and pay attention in order to understand the lore and characters.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Yeah, I don't think blatant exposition is required for a good story. If there's something great there once you put all the pieces together, I don't see why the pieces not appearing in front of you automatically and forming 100% whole story cake for you out of the box would be a strike against the game.

It also makes me very smug when people say demon's souls had no story to speak of.

 

[Excidium]

So is this really getting a PC port or what?

 

[racofer]

Looks like Oblivion with ENB series.

 

[Xi]

It's what a typical Knight looks like. Was just emphasizing that the game has good visuals. They aren't the best graphics I've ever seen, but they are aesthetically pleasing. Gameplay wise, it's not even similar to Oblivion. ;P

 

[bminorkey]

sorry, but that IS being stupid. how can you not realise that Vit and End are crucial if you were paying any kind of attention? i mean, "more HP = good" is self-explanatory, and if you were paying attention to the equipment or level-up screen or just during combat you'd have seen that having more stamina is a very good idea, as is having more equipment without hindering movement speed.

Of course it's a 'good' idea, but the player asks himself, hey, maybe I can bypass the need for absurd amounts of end/vit if I get 20 dex/str to be able to use such and such a bow, thus make my character viable for ranged combat! Or maybe he's thinking, hey, maybe I should focus on being able to wield that hammer which requires 40str earlier. Sure I won't be able to roll around as much but I shouldn't need it with such a whack hammer! And then you end up with a character that's not viable for PvP and is very very annoying to play in PvE, hence you need to restart your game.

And it's not even these extreme cases that matter. Say you want to make a cooping/pvping character that's SL60. Even knowing endurance and vitality are quite important, it's extremely extremely easy to spread out your stats too much, for example, if you want wrath of god + MLGS, without knowing that to be viable for multiplayer at that level your character needs at least 27vit/end. Or, here's an example that happened to me in my second character: I knew end/vit were important, but I spent my stats on being able to wield Gravelord Sword and use the MLB miracle (for a claymore). I aimed for level 60. My character had something like 24 end and 22 vit, making it 'ok' for co-oping and solo play but trash for PvP. Had to discard it. My first character also ran into similar problems, due to MLGS.

but.. you can play as a pure sorcerer or a bowman. it's also very easy to do so. actually, in PvE playing pure caster is very OP. the only problem is that without an online calculator you cannot see the magadjust of cats/tails on the level-up screen so you cannot correctly gauge if putting one more point into int/fth is a good idea. it's also not obvious that, for example, fth has crap scaling 30-40, but it's very awesome 40-50. or that the "int" breakpoints are 44 and 47. those would be very valid complaints

You cannot. I can see pure sorcerer being somehow viable in PvE, but you need to really know your shit, and it's definitely not viable in PvP. I beat O&S (solo) with a pure sorcerer in my first runthrough. Was a pain in the ass. Sure, if I try it today I'll probably be able to do it since I know what I'm doing, but that just means I'm good in O&S due to beating it billions of times, not that a sorcerer is somehow viable. A bowman is the same. The only sense in which it's PvE viable is if you're really good and know the game very well. And it's definitely not viable for PvP (other than dragonbow/avelyn trolling), which is pretty much obligatory if you intend to use the multiplayer element at all.

Hornet is known to be the most OP PvP item so it's very often banned from competitive play (and it's been banned by japanese "pro" players for a very long time). the only morally acceptable way to use hornet is for jumper/ganker hunting. bellowing dragoncrest is also an excellent ring since it boosts both sorceries and pyromancies, and is an excellent complement to the dusk crown making pyros like gcombust very powerful. the flip&flap rings are obvious choices because they provide greater mobility, stamina and health and so i (and others) can experiment much with stats and equipment choices 'cause i can more easily sacrifice points into End and/or Vit. and it's also why good players use both those rings and those specific armour combinations: for more creative freedom in stat and equip choice. just take a look at jumilaatori's builds (arguably one of the very best players in the world) over at the wikidot forums; you'll see that a lot of them are very similar in stat distribution but differ greatly in gameplay because of weapon/shield/spell/etc choice despite all of them using the same 2-3 rings and armour setup.

I use Flip&Fap myself, but they by no means support more experimentation. Like Havel's/FaP for PvP twinks, they allow you to use equipment you weren't meant to and move in it in unusual speeds. The only thing they really achieve is making light armor completely useless, since they allow you to wear heavy armor without any penalties whatsoever. This is not encouraging experimentation, it's letting players create ninja flipping Havels, putting builds that wear armor that's any lighter at a huge disadvantage. The reason most players use these two rings is that they outclass everything else so much that it's almost impossible to be PvP viable otherwise.

nobody is arguing that the game is balanced, because it isn't (and i've mentioned that before) and it could very easily be balanced much more properly with a few simple tweaks to most rings (for example: make DWGR work only for <25%, but make havel's work like the current DWGR except with fast roll instead of ninjaflip [this way no- or little-poise characters would have a small boost vs high-poise. or if you wanted both the flip and poise you'd either have to sacrifice both ring slots or a lot of points into End], reduce the dusk crown ring penalty to something like 10-15% HP instead of 50% [so you have another viable choice for pure casters.. that could be easily be offset by the mom's mask but that also means sacrificing the crow of dusk...], make the EWGR ring completely stop weapon degradation [and thus crystal weapons become awesome at the cost of a ring slot], give the tiny being ring health regen, give the cloranthy ring as much stamina regen as the grass, lingering dragoncrest boosts duration by 100% instead of 50, roll the slumbering and fog ring into one [but make the invisibility spell work like in DeS by making the player completely invisible after a certain distance], white seance ring gives 3 att slots, ring of the sun firstborn gives a 20-25% miracle boost, leo ring should be significantly better, ring of the evil eye could have the vampire effect lowered but it could work on successful hits instead of kills, etc...). problem is, if you balance the thing to work in the famous SL120 range, you're very likely unbalancing the other ranges and making the PvE easier

Here's what I'd do to answer both your concerns. Remove FaP. Make DWGR only work for <25%, remove Havel's ring completely (it just encourages stupid twinks). Make family masks heavier and nerf them by a lot (MoM should increase HP by 3-5% at best), maybe remove them altogether. Make long ranged pyromancy faster in general but closed ranged pyromancy (combustion) slower. Make EWGR do what you said, but only for crystal weapons (unless EWGR doesn't do anything about special R2 attacks, I'm not sure if it does that. My concern here is that we get MLGS moonlight wave spammers.). Tiny being ring should have some health regen, yes, and cloranthy ring should be boosted, but the grass crest shield should have its defensive values nerfed. Lingering dragoncrest should do 75%, perhaps. And yes do what you said about Slumbering/Fog. The changes about seance ring/sunborn/leo/ring of the evil eye I completely agree with. Nerf Hornet's by a lot and remove stab hitbox while rolling/jumping (so no chainstabs). All greatshields should have their weight and stat reqs increased. Nerf Giant's and Havel's somewhat, perhaps by making them weigh more so you pretty much have to be a med/fatroller to use them. Make Halberds faster and give black knight weapons a stat req increase, also make BKGA slower. This both makes PvE harder (since you've removed the OP rings) and PvP better.

Yeah, I don't think blatant exposition is required for a good story. If there's something great there once you put all the pieces together, I don't see why the pieces not appearing in front of you automatically and forming 100% whole story cake for you out of the box would be a strike against the game.

It also makes me very smug when people say demon's souls had no story to speak of.

What I'd love to hear is some genuine criticisms from someone that actually played the game

- Plot is vague and intentionally obscured. The only way to figure out what's going on is by doing things in a very unusual order, reading item descriptions and acting on them, and finding a lot of 'easter eggs' of sorts

Actually, I really liked that part. It seemed like you actually had to look around and pay attention in order to understand the lore and characters.

I agree, actually. I loved that part and I respect the decision - but I guess it isn't for everyone.