From Software The Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Xi]

even without buffs normal (or other "pure" weapons like the moonlight sword or butterfly horn) weapons will outdamage elementals more often than not because of their split damage. occult/enchanted could compete but you need the respective stats in the 50ies or above (and then you also get some insanely powerful buffs)

Occult Halbred + 4 (Never did find the final chunk to upgrade to +5) with 50 Faith. My char was a beast.

 

[Kitako]

I totally love Witcher 2.
I'm enjoying combat system in Kingdoms of Amalur (without exploiting the stats).
I had some mindless fun with Darksiders.

May I enjoy this game combat system?
(I play on PC with a xbox pad, for these kind of games)

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

I totally love Witcher 2.

May I enjoy this game combat system?

no

 

[Whisper]

I'm enjoying combat system in Kingdoms of Amalur (without exploiting the stats).

May I enjoy this game combat system?

This game would be too hard for you.

 

[Kitako]

Thanks

 

[Surf Solar]

lol, I've ordered the game yesterday around ~17:00 and it already was in the mail when I woke up (it's 12:49). This is like, the fastest delivery I ever had. :D
Installing now, will put my honest opinion later on.

 

[Xi]

I totally love Witcher 2.
I'm enjoying combat system in Kingdoms of Amalur (without exploiting the stats).
I had some mindless fun with Darksiders.

May I enjoy this game combat system?
(I play on PC with a xbox pad, for these kind of games)

The game's combat is simply not like either of the games you've listed. It's far more tactical. Getting hit = 1/4 to 1/2 of your life. Thus, blocking is very powerful (and the shield you use determines how much physical/magical damage will be blocked and how much seeps through). Plus, blocking/attacking uses up stamina. Thus, you can't just block/attack forever (Which makes increasing this stat good for most people). You have to use your resources wisely because without stamina you'll fall down if you try to block. With a shield up, your stamina regens a LOT slower, and you can drop your guard to increase that regen rate, but what happens when the enemies weapon takes up the entire screen and is being swung at you? How will you proceed? Take the hit and use a flask to restore health? Roll out of the way? Use healing spells (slow casts), or run and risk getting pummeled in the back by a spell that probably does even more damage. The game's combat is superior to the one's you've listed is all.

I would definitely give this a whirl. It's better than both the games you listed in terms of gameplay. It lacks in the narrative department however, but that's part of the charm.

 

[Surf Solar]

Haha, I was getting my ass handed already by the first boss. I think I will roll a new character (I had a knight this time) since the old one was a bit too slow. The game rocks, I like how fast one can die with a few hits.

 

[Kitako]

I totally love Witcher 2.
I'm enjoying combat system in Kingdoms of Amalur (without exploiting the stats).
I had some mindless fun with Darksiders.

May I enjoy this game combat system?
(I play on PC with a xbox pad, for these kind of games)

I would definitely give this a whirl. It's better than both the games you listed in terms of gameplay. It lacks in the narrative department however, but that's part of the charm.

Thanks for the elaborate reply. I will definetly give it a try if a PC version will come for real and if we'll get a demo. Definetly not spending money before trying it, but intersted.
Lacks of narrative doesn't matter for me, not the reason to play this branch of games.

 

[Whisper]

Btw, you are first who enjoy combat in Amalur.

I thought that spam 1 attack button with no risk to be defeated - is boring, and is far from enjoable. Speaking about Hard difficulty and no smith skill abuse.

 

[Antagonist]

nah. lightning deals split damage and as such is always inferior to pure physical (unless the enemy is particularly susceptible to lightning). as a rule of thumb, non-split damage>split damage. elemental weapons are good only for vit-gauge builds or as backup weapons (for example you make a str build and have a chaos/lightning rapier as a backup backstabbing weapon) or for specific PvE encounter where you know the enemy is susceptible to a particular type of damage (like the slimes in the depths being made of paper :p)

Unless you aim for PvP, where the split damage can reall hurt, or are a max/min player to the core, lightning weapon are almost game-breakingly powerful in PvE, especially if you consider that one only needs to meet the minimum stats to wield the weapon of choice instead of dumping dozens of levels into the main damage stat. When I first played DkS I tried to recreate a slightly modified faith build form DeS to play it safe. The jump in damage output after finding the lightning spear in Seth's Fortress was rather an eye opener. It easily outdid the damage from my blessed weapons at that point and I had already dumped quite some levels into faith. Judging from observations this is caused by most enemies having no lightning resistance to speak of. Maybe a small set of secondary weapons (esp. fire) for the few encounters where lightning doesn't cut it is advisable but otherwise get a weapon of choice to lightning +5 and you are set for the rest of the game.

 

[praetor]

Haha, I was getting my ass handed already by the first boss. I think I will roll a new character (I had a knight this time) since the old one was a bit too slow. The game rocks, I like how fast one can die with a few hits.

a few pointers, if you don't mind (with some PvP play in mind): when you're choosing a starting class, first thing you want to decide is if you want to use any spells (for miracles start with cleric or bandit. with the bandit it's easier to melee early on, but the cleric has the best catalyst until you reach fth 40 and that you can buy only from a merchant well after the half-mark of the game. for int-based magic: pyromancer or wanderer. pyro is a bit easier early on 'cause of the fireball. pyromancies-only: warrior, pyromancer, wanderer, bandit. no-spells: warrior) and what types of weapons you want to use (str or dex) and have your the other stat at the minimum to use most of the equipment (for example, if you want to use fast dex weapons, get your str at 14-16 and then pump dex to 40-45. although str weapons are a bit more... "complicated" with the stat-investment. there's also a couple of unique demon/dragon weapons that scale solely off Int). at soul level 120-125 (by far the busiest for online play) you should aim to have at least 45-50 vitality, 30-40 endurance (depending on weapon choice), 40 in your main weapon/spell damage scaling stat (or both, or 40/30-32. depending how much vitality/endurance/attunement you're willing to sacrifice). never put any points into resistance. 14-16 attunement is enough most of the time, go 19 only if going pure pyro, 23 only if going pure caster, more than that is a waste of points. explore a lot. don't waste "usable" humanity. if a creature has a tail, try cutting it off. break barrels by rolling (so you don't accidentally hit a friendly npc ). first thing you want to do when you get to firelink shrine is spend all your souls into leveling (get 12 dex ASAP so that you can buy a bow and arrows asap. they're lifesavers for PvE) and then explore it thoroughly (do suicide runs). always open up all the shortcuts that you can find. when you find the merchant that sells poison arrows, save some souls to buy 100-200 of those fuckers. they're worth it

EDIT:

Unless you aim for PvP, where the split damage can reall hurt, or are a max/min player to the core, lightning weapon are almost game-breakingly powerful in PvE, especially if you consider that one only needs to meet the minimum stats to wield the weapon of choice instead of dumping dozens of levels into the main damage stat. When I first played DkS I tried to recreate a slightly modified faith build form DeS to play it safe. The jump in damage output after finding the lightning spear in Seth's Fortress was rather an eye opener. It easily outdid the damage from my blessed weapons at that point and I had already dumped quite some levels into faith. Judging from observations this is caused by most enemies having no lightning resistance to speak of. Maybe a small set of secondary weapons (esp. fire) for the few encounters where lightning doesn't cut it is advisable but otherwise get a weapon of choice to lightning +5 and you are set for the rest of the game.

even in PvE more often than not a +15 weapon (unbuffed) will do more damage than a +5 lightning (or +5 chaos that has even more AR than lightning and many more enemies that are especially weak to fire (and only a few with significant resistances) and can be crafted significantly earlier than lightning). the problem is that for fth/int scaling weapons to compete and eventually overtake elementals you need to put at least 50 points into the respective stat and the (in)famous lightning spear is found roughly a third into the game (not to mention that spears are the easiest, most convenient, most noob-friendly PvE weapons). but even in PvE in ng+ and beyond elementals very quickly lose their edge as primary weapons (unless you go with a vit-gouge build in mind). the power of elemental weapons is often overstated/overhyped (as is the overall difficulty of the game). imho, the eagle shield is significantly more OP in PvE than any weapon or upgrade path

 

[funkadelik]

Haha, I was getting my ass handed already by the first boss. I think I will roll a new character (I had a knight this time) since the old one was a bit too slow. The game rocks, I like how fast one can die with a few hits.

Do you mean the asylum demon or whatever? Because you're suppose to escape and run away from the first encounter. Second encounter, a majority of the damage should be done by doing the drop in blow. I played a knight and never thought it was slow.

 

[Deitti]

The thing in starting with a knight is that you gotta block with shield more, instead of trying to roll around like an idiot. With proper stamina and upgraded shields, 90% of the attacks in this game can be blocked. This actually goes for any character that tries to put on the heavy armors. Rolling around only works with cloth/light armors or when you have alot of endurance and/or havel's ring. And of course internet is full of FAQs telling people what combination of armors to use for best poise to weight ratio.

 

[Surf Solar]

Yeah I facepalmed pretty hard when I found the message saying "get outta here!11" when I met that demon the first time, 2-3 times I almost got him at only a tiny fraction of his lifebar, then I died. The second encounter (with weapons proper and shield etc) was easy then. I simply didn't know I was supposed to run away the first time I saw him. Next playthrough I will try to beat that guy on the first encounter, just like I did in the beginning.

Haha, I was getting my ass handed already by the first boss. I think I will roll a new character (I had a knight this time) since the old one was a bit too slow. The game rocks, I like how fast one can die with a few hits.

a few pointers, if you don't mind (with some PvP play in mind): when you're choosing a starting class, first thing you want to decide is if you want to use any spells (for miracles start with cleric or bandit. with the bandit it's easier to melee early on, but the cleric has the best catalyst until you reach fth 40 and that you can buy only from a merchant well after the half-mark of the game. for int-based magic: pyromancer or wanderer. pyro is a bit easier early on 'cause of the fireball. pyromancies-only: warrior, pyromancer, wanderer, bandit. no-spells: warrior) and what types of weapons you want to use (str or dex) and have your the other stat at the minimum to use most of the equipment (for example, if you want to use fast dex weapons, get your str at 14-16 and then pump dex to 40-45. although str weapons are a bit more... "complicated" with the stat-investment. there's also a couple of unique demon/dragon weapons that scale solely off Int). at soul level 120-125 (by far the busiest for online play) you should aim to have at least 45-50 vitality, 30-40 endurance (depending on weapon choice), 40 in your main weapon/spell damage scaling stat (or both, or 40/30-32. depending how much vitality/endurance/attunement you're willing to sacrifice). never put any points into resistance. 14-16 attunement is enough most of the time, go 19 only if going pure pyro, 23 only if going pure caster, more than that is a waste of points. explore a lot. don't waste "usable" humanity. if a creature has a tail, try cutting it off. break barrels by rolling (so you don't accidentally hit a friendly npc ). first thing you want to do when you get to firelink shrine is spend all your souls into leveling (get 12 dex ASAP so that you can buy a bow and arrows asap. they're lifesavers for PvE) and then explore it thoroughly (do suicide runs). always open up all the shortcuts that you can find. when you find the merchant that sells poison arrows, save some souls to buy 100-200 of those fuckers. they're worth it

Thanks! I don't plan to play PvP (I don't even have that Xboxlive Gold stuff) but these are some good tips. I rolled a wanderer now and have a bit of a better time. I don't know what level I am (I pumped my Dex up to ~24 and all other relevant stats got +4 or 5 , yeah I grinded a bit) and I slowly start to feel a bit more powerful and don't fear the next corner (yeah, I guess I shouldn't become too frivolous and the game will punish me :D ). Another mistake I made was trying to push through the graveyard next to the starting hub, those skeletons there easily pwned me and I wasted some fire bombs on them. Then I found the path up that hill into the undead city (nice vista) - that's where I am right now and levelled a bit.

I also have found 4-5 of those shards already, did I miss some smith that can put it on a weapon, or am I just not supposed to do this at this point in the game?

But I really gotta say, this game is awesome. When a game makes you feel lonely and you are terrified by going into the next corner, yet it gives yourself the urge to play further and further, it must do something right.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

on the audio side bro you should have noticed
how all dialog has this hollow, bleak tone to it, some genius postprocessing I think

dat ambient monster sound cues, especially the humanoids and skeletons

dat music

 

[Surf Solar]

Yeah that's true. First I was also a bit disappointed that there is mostly no music playing in "enemy territory" but now I think it adds actually to the atmosphere. Furthermore, the very short amount of time you can listen to actual music it makes it stick much better than a constant soundloop everywhere.

I really liked the very first track in the character creation too.

 

[felipepepe]

But I really gotta say, this game is awesome. When a game makes you feel lonely and you are terrified by going into the next corner, yet it gives yourself the urge to play further and further, it must do something right.

BROTIP: Don't ever use guides or walkthroughs or even brotips until you have finished it. Dark Souls is a fantastic game that has one of the best atmospheres ever, and a sense of tension and exploration that few game can rival. And nothing would spoil more the fun than to know that X monster is waiting for you at Y spot and that a secret passage will take you to Z.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

In demon's souls at least you're not supposed to be listening to music at all but the environment so you can't blame sweet ambient tracks for killing you

 

[Average Manatee]

Dark souls isn't really a hard game (to anyone who is decent at these types of games), it's simply one of the few that does difficulty WELL.

It says a lot that DkS/DeS both are considered "hard but fair" even though they only have 1 difficulty level, and this is enough to please a wide range of players. Meanwhile other games have a whole range of difficulties from "easy mode awesome button everything" to "rape me please", and yet none of those games have a single difficulty level that plays as naturally as DkS/DeS do.

A lot more developers need to take a "lets make a really good, smart challenge" stance instead of "lets sprinkle enemies around randomly and let the player arbitrarily nerf or buff their health and damage by changing the difficulty until its bearable".

 

[praetor]

Thanks! I don't plan to play PvP (I don't even have that Xboxlive Gold stuff) but these are some good tips. I rolled a wanderer now and have a bit of a better time. I don't know what level I am (I pumped my Dex up to ~24 and all other relevant stats got +4 or 5 , yeah I grinded a bit) and I slowly start to feel a bit more powerful and don't fear the next corner (yeah, I guess I shouldn't become too frivolous and the game will punish me :D ). Another mistake I made was trying to push through the graveyard next to the starting hub, those skeletons there easily pwned me and I wasted some fire bombs on them. Then I found the path up that hill into the undead city (nice vista) - that's where I am right now and levelled a bit.

I also have found 4-5 of those shards already, did I miss some smith that can put it on a weapon, or am I just not supposed to do this at this point in the game?

But I really gotta say, this game is awesome. When a game makes you feel lonely and you are terrified by going into the next corner, yet it gives yourself the urge to play further and further, it must do something right.

you should reconsider the PvP thing, it's very very fun when you don't run into cheap gankers or xbawks hax0rs (that's why ps>xbawks :p. btw, do you have to pay for that crap to play online on the x360? i thought it was more like the psn+ thing where you pay only for some premium shit and stuff...). or at least play on-line for the full experience of cooping with strangers and being invaded by griefers

your dex is @24 and you're barely in the undead burg and you grinded "a bit"? liar!

further unspoilery hints and tips: yeah, leave the skellies and their area for much later (at one point much further down the line, if you're thorough enough with your exploring, you'll come across an "occult club". downgrade that shit to +5 divine and only then venture into the graveyard and beyond (although you can do that right now by suicide running for some useful items). HINT: this game has fake walls so if something looks suspicious be sure to whack it. it's also helpful to play online since players usually leave messages near fake walls. HINT2: divine (and blunt) crap is very very useful vs skeletons. especially beyond the graveyard). another unspoilery hint: there's a relatively useful merchant in the general area where you are now (undead burg). far from hidden, but not really obvious. he sells 4 items that you should really buy: orange soapstone (write and rate messages), residence key (buy now so you don't have to backtrack), bottomless box (item management at bonfires), repairbox (repairing at bonfires). regarding the shards, the blacksmith is... not far (there's also one that is very near Firelink but i won't spoil it :p). when you finally find him (you'll hear his pounding when you're near enough), farm 4k more souls (or 6 if you didn't buy the repairbox from the merchant) to buy the armour and weapon smithbox so that you can upgrade stuff at bonfires. and while you're there, if you're not too high level (20-25ish should be ok) before or after the boss you can lay down your sign for some coop action to "farm" some souls and have some fun (it's a griefer hotspot so you'll have plenty of chances to fight twinked invaders with some bros )

 

[mindx2]

I phrased it that way so people can have a chuckle! You're a true bro and deserve some great TB games and adventures! Here's to hoping Double Fine and inXile deliver!

Just teasing you as well :p! At least my wife "enjoys" my thumbs :D!!!

 

[Berekän]

 

[sgc_meltdown]

 

[Infinitron]

I phrased it that way so people can have a chuckle! You're a true bro and deserve some great TB games and adventures! Here's to hoping Double Fine and inXile deliver!

Just teasing you as well :p! At least my wife "enjoys" my thumbs :D!!!

Hey everybody, the armless guy can get a wife and you can't