Dark Souls

[bovine]

The new content will be available as DLC for the 360 and ps3. Praise the sun!!!!

[bovine]

Dark Souls DLC - Artorias of the Abyss is out NOW for 360 and PS3 for 1,200 points or $15 bucks.

I am not sure how to access the new content. I wonder if I should just start the whole game over again.... Hrm.....

[Shrinweck]

I'm hesitant to get this at full price on the PC since it's hailed as a terrible port of what is still pulling really good reviews even for the PC version.

I'll get it next time there's a lull in gaming releases and it's on sale for something cheap.

[Anarky]

I'm hesitant to get this at full price on the PC since it's hailed as a terrible port of what is still pulling really good reviews even for the PC version.

I'll get it next time there's a lull in gaming releases and it's on sale for something cheap.

On sale for $20 on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Souls-Prepar ... slicinc-20

[bovine]

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition is $20 on Amazon.com.

I heard some stuff about unlocking the resolution restrictions and other game optimizations that have been modded into the game. No specifics, but this is a superb game that I cannot say enough good things about.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah some guy modded in resolution in less than half an hour - something the devs said they couldn't make time for in months of production.

[bovine]

Flash sale on steam! Pick this puppy up for $20 instead of $40. Praise the sun!!!

[Shrinweck]

It's $15 on Amazon for a Steam code so I picked it up finally.

Looking forward to playing Borderlands 2 with you and Tess more though :D

Edit: Some ridiculous idiot thought the system menu should default to the end key and not esc and the mouse sensitivity is fucking abysmal and cannot be modified in the options menu. I've been putting off buying a controller and I guess I finally have to. Have the developers even played a PC game before? I liked how the first 30 odd seconds of the tutorial played though.

[bovine]

It's $15 on Amazon for a Steam code so I picked it up finally.

Looking forward to playing Borderlands 2 with you and Tess more though

Edit: Some ridiculous idiot thought the system menu should default to the end key and not esc and the mouse sensitivity is fucking abysmal and cannot be modified in the options menu. I've been putting off buying a controller and I guess I finally have to. Have the developers even played a PC game before? I liked how the first 30 odd seconds of the tutorial played though.

Keep me updated on things about the PC version. The internet has not been very positive about it (they made essentially no changes from the console versions). Also, PLEASE post about your experience with the game. I want to hear everything.

[Shrinweck]

I put through the order like a minute ago... should be here by Friday.

Edit: The game really makes every port mistake.. Bad scaling with resolution and that thing where it says "PRESS *A* TO PILLAGE THE BODY" and it shows the *A* key of an XBOX controller as opposed to the key it's bound to on the keyboard. Menus are kind of clumsy with the mouse, if they're usable at all. The only reason I've bought it is your recommendation and that the PC Gamer review said that the fun of the game was intact and survived translation to the PC, even with the issues with porting it over.

Controller will be nice to own.. there are a couple games that I basically stopped playing because I got sick of the mouse and keyboard tomfoolery and maybe I'll finally go back to them.

I'm probably going to pick a wanderer as my first character.

[bovine]

[SineSwiper]

Okay, what the fuck is wrong with you people? I played the game for around 4 hours before I decided that I couldn't take it any more:

1. The graphics are ass. Havoc's engine is so 10 years ago. It's like everything has been spray painted with reflective material, and the game is dark as hell unless you turn up the brightness.

2. The game tells you nothing. I mean, there's some messages giving you some button configuration here and there, but I had this spell that I was stuck not being able to cast until I eventually looked it up on the Internet. Apparently, I needed to wield a staff to cast it. But, the game doesn't tell you that at all. It doesn't tell you much of anything. No tutorial. No help system. Nothing. It's that kind of missing detail that betrays a lack of polish that this game should have but doesn't. (Given the complaints about the PC porting, that kind of laziness doesn't surprise me now.)

3. Boring medieval story. Well, being undead is a twist, but it's like there isn't much difference between being human and being undead.

And by far my biggest complaint...

4. The game is sadistically hard. And not in a good way. A good way would be something like, say, FFT, where it requires skill and strategy to overcome some of the difficulty.

No, this game is difficult in a grindy way. For one, even standard enemies can kill you in 3-4 hits. It doesn't matter if you have 10 heals or not when you have to make sure you're not going to die when you try to drink a flask. If you don't get hit, great, but if you do, be prepared to risk dying to some shitty ass undead melee dude, or at least use up a potion.

So, you think "Well, if these guys are hard, maybe I should level up." Great, except that leveling up is tied to souls, and souls are "left" on your body when you die. (And you better make sure you get to your body before you die again, or the XP is just gone. It's just FUCKING GONE!) This means that XP is a disposable commodity, which breaks one of the golden rules of RPG design. Leveling up involves going back to the bonfire, which BTW, also respawns all of the enemies you just killed. So, trying to GAIN LEVELS is punished, unless you stay in one area and keep respawning the enemies. But, this only helps out things to a much smaller degree than what you would expect. The levels are not exponential at all. You could go from level 6 to level 20 and the enemies can still kill you in 4-5 hits.

And don't even get me started on boss fights. The boss fights seem to be centered on cheap tricks, like jumping off a tower over and over again. Bosses will either kill you in one hit or get you down to 20-30% in one hit. If you can't figure out some sort of pattern, you will die. This is very bad for several reasons: 1. All of the enemies will respawn which you will have to fight through again, 2. Your body probably had a ton of XP from all of the guys you had to fight before, and 3. You respawn very far from the boss, which means you will probably lose your body and spend another 10-20 minutes trying to get back to the boss. All to just die several more times as you figure out how to defeat this boss. This wasted hour turns into NOTHING GAINED except some repetitive items that you already got, but the XP is likely gone, never to return.

Oh, and the merchant also wants your souls/XP. I killed the fucker for even suggesting that.

After all of that pain and controller-throw-worthy anguish, I felt like I didn't even get that far into the game for how long I spent on it.

[Don]

I've never quite understood why people like these masochistically difficult game.

Even the hardest group content in EQ where literally every mob can wipe out a fully raid geared group if you make a single mistake do not respawn. I remember doing some of the stuff that took like 10 hours but at least you know every guy you kill stays dead.

I think the school of thought that you're somehow supposed to get good enough skill-wise to beat a game is absurd. Even Megaman games offer you E-tanks for you to brute force your way through the boss you absolutely can't beat by your skill. Respawning enemies pretty much never goes with well for enjoyable gameplay.

[SineSwiper]

I think the school of thought that you're somehow supposed to get good enough skill-wise to beat a game is absurd. Even Megaman games offer you E-tanks for you to brute force your way through the boss you absolutely can't beat by your skill. Respawning enemies pretty much never goes with well for enjoyable gameplay.

Respawning is okay, as long as it's timed and not directly tied to save points. Death is okay, as long as you don't have to spend more than 2-3 minutes getting back to where you were at. Disposable XP is NEVER NEVER NEVER okay, especially in a game that doesn't have freeform save points. Leveling should never be tied to whether you're at a save point or not. Just give the damn level right away.

These are the most basic of RPG tenants, and this game breaks them all in the name of difficulty. They are unbreakable tenants for a reason: people are sick of that kind of repetitive grindy bullshit. Anarchy Online tried (some of) these concepts and it was an absymal failure.

[Don]

Well obviously it's some total function of difficulty. If stuff in Diablo 2 respawned every 5 minutes it wouldn't really have much of an impact because it's really easy to get to where ever you're trying to go. If you've something like some of the EQ1 content where there's like 3 hours of trash clearing you obviously can't make stuff respawn in under say 6 hours if at all because otherwise you'd just spend your whole time clearing trash.

I remember reading a random review for a RPG on SNES where there's enemies that permanently de-leveled you, and the guide is like 'DO NOT EVER FIGHT THESE GUYS UNLESS YOU LIKE WASTING YOUR TIME" and I guess there's a reason why I've never seen this game anywhere either.

I mean for all the talk about EQ being hardcore, very rarely do you even end up with negative progress even on the XP bar even with the XP loss on death unless your group is downright incompetent. Plane of Fear/Hate had something like 24 hour respawns on mobs and you'd read guides that basically assumes you might be in the zone for 20 hours and how you're supposed to use those 20 hours to effectively farm stuff once you get past the hardest entrance stuff. And that'd be perfectly fine especially in a single player game where you can presumably save. You can even keep the same basic structure as long as the timer is paused while you're not playing the game.

Some games I feel the designer basically looks at a game and say 'how can we make sure the player make no progress whatsoever after some time spent' and figure that must be a good thing. Even EQ when you're talking about hundreds of man-hours spent, you almost always make some progress. It might be the kind of progress you're hoping for (beating the boss), but you usually can get at least some kind of stuff on the way there that'd make your party stronger. Maybe you really aren't anywhere close to beating the boss but you know after 200 manhours at some uber boss you're at least stronger at the end than before.

This is also why I don't really like maniac shooter games because a lot of time it feels like you're making literally 0 progress toward beating the game.

[Oracle]

The game has a tough learning curve.

Yes, you are supposed to be good at the game. If you can't develop your skills in this one, then you will not progress.

I beat the game the 2nd time around in a mere fraction of what it took the first time.

l2p

[Oracle]

They are unbreakable tenants for a reason: people are sick of that kind of repetitive grindy bullshit.

ROFL, according to you.

God forbid someone produce a game that breaks Sine's unbreakable tenants!

[Oracle]

Oh, and also, learn to utilize multiplayer help or the NPC help on tough bosses. I will admit I did NOT do this at all, and it really would have made my experience less frustrating at first.

[Don]

Unless having a healthy dose of reviewer help (which Dark Souls looks like it did) the hardcore games never make it far, and here it's more like an Emperor's New Cloth problem because no respectable game reviewer wants to admit this game is too hard. Thus even if the reviewer cannot actually beat the game he'll still give it a high score and praise its difficulty just so that he doens't look like a newbie. It's exactly the same thing as what happened to Diablo 3's Inferno mode where nobody in their right mind would consider it balanced but Diablo 3 still got rave reviews most likely because most reviewers never even got that far, and if they did they sure didn't want to say stuff like "Inferno mode sucks because I die in in one hit on the first thing I ran into" because people will say they need to L2P even though that's true. I mean how do you even review say Everquest: Gates of Discord truthfully? Unless you spend your whole life playing EQ your party is going to wipe on the first level 65 mob it runs into, but did any reviewer said: "The zones are way overbalanced for the elite raiders, you're wasting your money for buying this expansion?" No they all said something like 'it's hard but if you keep on work at it blah blah blah" even though if you keep on work at it you'll still die terribly because none of those guys drop the loot you'd need to be able to beat them reliably.

Then again if you just go on stuff you hear online you'd think Deity is something that's regularly beatable (as opposed to "Iron 6 in starting city LOL") in Civ 5. I remember beating Torchlight 2 on Elite when it had like a 0.2% completion (it's now 1.4%) but of course that didn't stop everyone on the Internet from saying Elite isn't too hard, you just need to L2P even though there's no way this could even work out statistically unless every poster is in the 1% (or better, actually). I even play the fan made mods for a lot of stuff that isn't even meant to be beatable and I always see people advising people on how to beat certain ones that are known to be unbeatable, which means whoever came up with the advice clearly never actually even played the mod because if he did, it'd be obvious none of those tactics would've worked.

There's a place for the crazy mods like the Nobu 11 scenarios where you play for 20 hours and then realized you had absolutely no chance of winning because you expanded a bit slowly second hour into the game and this small difference at start means you'll get run over 30 hours later but that shouldn't be the default starting place for a game.

[SineSwiper]

The game has a tough learning curve.

There's a difference between learning and just not giving out information because it's lazy. Or because not giving out information will lazily make it more "difficult".

There is also a difference between difficulty and frustration level. The goal should not be making the game more frustrating. This is an important distinction.

Yes, you are supposed to be good at the game. If you can't develop your skills in this one, then you will not progress.

Again, difference between difficulty and frustration level. And luck. I'm okay with an RPG that wants you to level up. However, the levels have to MEAN something. Right now, it looks like items matter more than your level. This means that you're only going to get so far with leveling up before it becomes pointless. As it stands right now, leveling up barely means much already.

Also, skills. Let me tell you about skills. Ninja Gaiden is a skill-based action RPG. It has a fighting engine as its core, so as long as you can master the difficult moves and combos, you can get through the game. It's difficult because the skills are difficult to master. It's also a fun game because near mastery is possible, even if it's difficult. (Mind you, this is a game that eventually put in a "Ninja Dog" mode because people complained of the difficulty.)

With Dark Souls, I can only get so far with shield & sword (and the medium-range spell), especially when I'm trying to go two-handed or wield a staff+sword. It's easy to get ganked a couple of random spear zombies. There isn't much of a "move list" to speak of. Counters are there, but trying to rely on them will usually get you killed. (The timing is on par with SF3.)

I beat the game the 2nd time around in a mere fraction of what it took the first time.

Part of that may have had to do with the class. My sorcerer is supposed to do spells, but I'm fighting most of the time, and I'm sure my health/armor sucks because of the class.

[Don]

The nature of the game itself doesn't really matter much from a difficulty point of view. If every fighting game starts with Shin Akuma as your first stage enemy you can bet a lot of people will never finish the game and that'd be a very dumb thing to do indeed. Even having Shin Akuma as your last boss is probably a bad idea because he's borderline unbeatable in his various incarnations, which is why Shin Akuma is almost always an optional boss in the Street Fighter games.

Realistically most games you don't expect people to actually get very good at it over time. For example the Civ 5 Deity difficulty setting is well outside the beatable range of an average player, and the average player isn't going to care enough to read up on how to exploit the AI or reroll the world enough times until you have Iron 6 in your starting city. If this was the only setting for the game, no one outside of the most diehard fans of the Civ series would ever play the game. Even when you factor in leveling up mechanisms, most games grossly overestimate how good their game is. For example in Megaman you can farm 1UPs, ETanks, and in MMX8 you even need to farm some currency to buy stuff. I'd estimate the appropriate amount of time people expect to grind on a Megaman game is somewhere around 10 minutes, which is why having several of the key equipment that you'd need to beat the game if you're not an action gaming wiz requiring several hours of grinding is dumb because people don't expect to grind hours for a Megaman game. Megaman Legends 2 also requires some insane grinds to get enough ETanks and weapon upgrades to realistically have a shot at defeating Sarah. In fact I think most people never finished Megaman Legends 2 because the final grind is insanely long. If you're a pretty decent 3D platformer guy you can easily get to Sarah before you have Kevlar Armor Omega and then die in one hit from every attack she has because you don't have this armor. Then you take 2 hours needed to farm the money you need and then you're still nowhere close to beating her because you need somewhere around 40ETanks to have a realistic shot unless you put on a Youtube-worthy performance and that'd involve shooting at the 3 enemies for the next 25 hours to get enough money for those 40 ETanks. Or you can hope that you magically become one of those guys capable of doing a TAS video without the TAS on Youtube though in reality you'd just repeatedly die at somewhere around 50% from some nearly unavoidable combo of attacks.

Now if MML2 was a MMORPG maybe grinding 25 hours to be ready for the final encounter is considered reasonable. In WoW you'd be expected to spend hundreds of hours to prep for high end raids, and EQ that number could go to thousands. But MML2 is a Megaman game and people don't have RPG-like expectations in terms of grind. Gradius V requires something like 15 hours of gameplay to unlock unlimited continues, which is what you'll need to actually beat the game assuming you're a normal guy. In general I see way too many examples of game developer thinking their game deserves a period of 'pay your dues' far more than what any normal gamer is willing to do. Spending 10 minutes to farm 1UPs is considered a lot of time to 'pay your dues' for a Megaman game, or a Mario game. You can't point to a MMORPG and say 'but those guys needs hundreds of hours!', not to mention in a MMORPG it's generally understood that the actual game is pretty easy once you paid your dues whereas in an action game presumably 'pay your dues' doesn't mean you get to kill everything in one hit.

[bovine]

Hey Sine,

Where are you in the game, what level are you and what are your stats? Oracle and I have beaten this game multiple times and are a pretty good resource for help if you have any questions.

In terms of your starting class being a sorcerer, that only determines your beginning gear and stats. You WILL be in melee combat most of the time just because of the nature of magic (you only get a certain amount of casts between bonfires). I started as a pyro and then leaned heavily into regular magic because I was an idiot and mis-allocated all my stats into INT, when that doesn't help pyromancy at all.

Also, souls are EXP and money. Merchants have very helpful items and they are few and far between, so killing that one has cut off your access to an early bow that would have been very helpful in getting you a pretty important earlygame sword.

[SineSwiper]

Where are you in the game, what level are you and what are your stats? Oracle and I have beaten this game multiple times and are a pretty good resource for help if you have any questions.

Near the first dragon past Undead Burg.

In terms of your starting class being a sorcerer, that only determines your beginning gear and stats. You WILL be in melee combat most of the time just because of the nature of magic (you only get a certain amount of casts between bonfires). I started as a pyro and then leaned heavily into regular magic because I was an idiot and mis-allocated all my stats into INT, when that doesn't help pyromancy at all.

Not according to this guide. He also says that pyros have the best starting armor in the game, so that helps.

Also, souls are EXP and money. Merchants have very helpful items and they are few and far between, so killing that one has cut off your access to an early bow that would have been very helpful in getting you a pretty important earlygame sword.

Yeah, and that shit is permanent.

Fucking X-Mas season had zero games, so now I'm considering restarting this goddamn game...

[SineSwiper]

Rang the Church Bell, with a 3-man group. Some guy gave me an awesome Fire Hand Axe+5, which helped out. Seems like a weird weapon to upgrade, but it works. But, I still seem to have the same problem of high damage, low armor. I can one shot most undead, including Rapier Knights, but they can also get me down to 60-80% if I'm not careful.

I've upgraded my starting armor, but it doesn't appear to help that much. At level 29, and I've upgraded INT (26) and END (16) quite a bit, too. Even low level enemies could still kill me if I'm not careful. This is still something I hate about this game.

[SineSwiper]

See, this is what I'm talking about. This guy is at level 9. He looks like he's barely wearing any armor. Nothing special about the stats, either. When he gets hit by this guy, he takes maybe 25%.

I'm at level 32. I have all of my starting armor at +3, a hollow shield, and that fire axe (which is never a problem). I try to BLOCK this guy and he kills my stamina and puts me down to 10% life. I try to run to the stairs and get cornered by the dogs (which I'm trying to kill one at a time by getting to the stairs). And of course, the only bonfires still require a bit of running around to get to this boss, only to take a brief 5 seconds to kill me. (That's not counting the times where assassins manage to gank me via gangbang combo. Or that time when I fell to my death because they purposely put the fucking door to lower Berg on top of the stairs.)

You can't seem to SOLO bosses at all. You always need some sort of decoy to tank the boss while you manage to damage them. Or use some cheap trick to kill them.

[Don]

A lot of time the designer seem to get into an arms race match, it's like you know whatever you design is likely to have some kind of cheap trick/exploit you overlooked so to be extra safe you take what you cannot physically beat yourself and double it (oh wait that's Diablo 3 Inferno mode), and when people complain the game is too hard you either lie about how you can beat the game or blame them for not finding whatever cheap exploit that'd allow them to overcome the challenge that may or may not have been discovered or even exist.

[Flip]

Wow that game looks clunky and ugly. I havent read this thread, but dat video... yuck.

[SineSwiper]

Wow that game looks clunky and ugly. I havent read this thread, but dat video... yuck.

See, I'm not the only one who thinks the game looks like ass.

[Oracle]

Don't certain shield provide more protection when blocking than others?

I haven't played the game in quite a while, but I believe that's how it works.

Minor spoiler mentioning bosses:

Spoiler: show

I solo'd every boss in the game, first play through, as well as second (just sayin, I didn't have xbox live gold and I didn't figure out summoning until just before I beat it the first time :p). I did have to look at a guide for how to beat the 4 Kings (?) on the second play through, though. And that spear guy and big ass ogre combo boss took me a freaking long time to finally get past.

Some bosses, you want to equip light armor so you can run freaking fast. Some bosses you want to equip the heaviest shit you can wear. Some are much easier depending on the shield you use. There is a lot of strategy to some of the bosses. Don't get me wrong, pattern recognition is a major part of it, but armor, weapon and shield choices (and whether or not to use magic/pyro) can have big impacts on the outcome.

[SineSwiper]

A lot of time the designer seem to get into an arms race match, it's like you know whatever you design is likely to have some kind of cheap trick/exploit you overlooked so to be extra safe you take what you cannot physically beat yourself and double it (oh wait that's Diablo 3 Inferno mode), and when people complain the game is too hard you either lie about how you can beat the game or blame them for not finding whatever cheap exploit that'd allow them to overcome the challenge that may or may not have been discovered or even exist.

Honestly, I was thinking the same thing when I was watching the video. The Taurus Demon is a perfect example of that.

Don't certain shield provide more protection when blocking than others?

It depends on the type of damage. The Hollow shield seems to be a good all around mid-level shield. I've been upgrading the shield because, hey, what else am I going to do with these shards. It seems to add (slowly) to Stability, which helps a little bit. I still sometimes get that big hit which throws my shield back.

I did beat that demon with summoning help. A major part of the boss fights seems to be tanking and/or deflection, so that you can freely do your shit while somebody else plays bait. Or in this case, I don't get two dogs and the boss all hitting me at the same time. I think that's while my health went to 0 pretty quickly.

Some bosses, you want to equip light armor so you can run freaking fast. Some bosses you want to equip the heaviest shit you can wear. Some are much easier depending on the shield you use. There is a lot of strategy to some of the bosses. Don't get me wrong, pattern recognition is a major part of it, but armor, weapon and shield choices (and whether or not to use magic/pyro) can have big impacts on the outcome.

It's too bad that the strategy comes with a lot of grindy shit. Having to travel for 5 minutes just to experiment for 5-10 seconds is not fun. There are certain spots where the bonfires should be in better places or just have more of them. You can tell by the "Need humanity" and other comments that people just want to summon a phantom or two and not deal with the 2 hours of fucking around with some frustrating boss fight. Hell, it's enough of a challenge to just get to the boss fight.

Like Basilisks. Fell down a pit in the Depths with around 7000 souls (actually just looking for a bonfire to spend it on), and I get ganked by several Basilisks. They didn't even look like the traditional kind, so I wasn't even expecting to be cursed. So, lo and behold, I get the "here's your first curse" info message on my respawn, with barely any information. Yay, I have a permanent curse that HALVES MY FUCKING HP. I mean, in THIS game, it halves your HP. And it tells me something about going to New Rondo Ruins to seek a healer? Fuck that SHIT! I haven't even explored there yet, and my character isn't in an exploring frame of mind right now.

Thank god I've been wiki surfing, else I wouldn't know that Oswald sells Purging Stones for 3000 souls. Thank god I've rung the first bell, else I wouldn't have been able to even get to him. Oh, and thank god I actually DIDN'T find that Depths bonfire, else I would have been cursed in the middle of fucking nowhere. It only took me a few death/repower cycles to C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y farm enemies in the church until I got the 3000 souls for the Stone.

About an hour wasted because of a goddamn basilisk.

At least they have the foresight to provide a Homeward Path for most boss battles. Don't want to get those 30K souls or whatever, only to lose it to some low-level pink fucker, or worse, falling.

[SineSwiper]

So, I still maintain a love/hate relationship with this game. Well, "love" is strong word. I honestly don't know why I'm still playing this game. Probably because I've already invested time into playing it and I might as well finish it. So, 55 hours into this damn game and...

Still on the first playthrough, but I finally placed the Lordvessel. Seriously, this game needs a warp WAAAAY before when you actually get it. It should be called "Backtracking: The Game", since you are running around to either your body or different places to farm shit more than you're actually playing the game. (Going through Sen's Fortress back and forth is a real pain.) Trying to get to the Crystal Caves right now, so that I can farm Blue Titanite better than the 4 Darkroot golems can provide. Current stats:

Level 76
Almost fully upgraded Black Iron Armor (just need 4 more Twik)
around 50 INT and 27-30 END
+4 Enchanted Balder Side Sword
+1 Chaos Hand-Axe (my former +5 Fire weapon that I got from somebody)
+0 Enchanted Longbow
+10 Eagle Shield
Have a mostly upgraded Pyro armor set, too, for lighter armor

I still find it comical that I have the best armor in the game and these crystal baddies STILL knock me around like I'm a goddamn doggie chew toy. The game just wants you to dodge all the time, so I really don't see the point of heavy armor builds, since armor just doesn't do shit in this game. It's only going to go downhill from here, since the game will be 3x as hard on NG+.

[bovine]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

You like it.

[SineSwiper]

Yeah, when I'm not resisting the urge to throw the controller at my TV. That was 25K souls down the drain because these crystal guys take off 3/4th of my fucking health per hit! Best armor, mind you. In the game.

Hell, I'm at the point where I have to get 35K or so to actually level up now.

[bovine]

Have you done any of the covenant stuff?

[Oracle]

How to power level souls:

Spoiler: show

Go to the area in that forest where the humans are hanging around (I havent played in a long time, forget most of the zone names). It's right before the Cat who has a covenant. After the Cat is the area before the wolf/sword boss.

So now, once you are at the stairway to this area, turn around, leave the area, turn to your right, and break the wall (unveils save point).

Now, run into the area and aggro 2-3 of the humans hanging around. Run back to the entrance of the area where the stairs are. Instead of going up the stairs, go to the right of them and squeeze into that little area that borders the cliff.

Hang out there, baddies will run up the stairs, and then jump off the cliff trying to get to you.

If my description is too low on details, just google a video for it :p Although, they may have patched this out by now...

If this still works, no more reason to be mad at losing souls :p

[SineSwiper]

How to power level souls:

Spoiler: show

Go to the area in that forest where the humans are hanging around (I havent played in a long time, forget most of the zone names). It's right before the Cat who has a covenant. After the Cat is the area before the wolf/sword boss.

So now, once you are at the stairway to this area, turn around, leave the area, turn to your right, and break the wall (unveils save point).

Now, run into the area and aggro 2-3 of the humans hanging around. Run back to the entrance of the area where the stairs are. Instead of going up the stairs, go to the right of them and squeeze into that little area that borders the cliff.

Hang out there, baddies will run up the stairs, and then jump off the cliff trying to get to you.

You mean this? (Under Clan of Forest Protectors Alternative) Yes, I leveled up quite a bit through that method. Also wrote the "Safer Gramophone Alternative", since I was doing that for a few hours. (Even starting doing the "Undead Burg Bridge Dragon Fire" method early on.)

Doesn't mean it doesn't suck to lose souls.

Also, I've been using that site religiously. Usually I wait until after I finish the game, but this game has so many "points of no return" that you HAVE to use a site like this to make sure you're not going to screw up your playthrough.

As far as covenant stuff, I briefly joined the Chaos Servant one, but I'm becoming less and less impressed with Pyromancy. So, I switched to Blade of the Darkmoon. It's okay, but it can take quite a bit to find people sometimes. And when you do... well... the PvP aspect to this game is weird. For one, you can't use your Flask, but people seem to bypass that by using Miracles, or if you can't do that, by using Humanity. It seems like a dumb restriction. For another, most of the players who PvP are grievers and assholes. Most seem to play the same way: Homing Soulmass, shake your shield up and down, only try for a backstab, etc.

"Fun" ways I've died to PvP:

* Backstabbed about 3 seconds after I got the invade message (and was waving to two co-op phantoms)
* Chasing a guy in Anor and ended up hitting Siegmeyer (and dying). Absolution cost me an outrageous 36K souls.
* Many players who seem to only take 15 pts of damage from direct hits. I'm guessing this is because the level restrictions are not as restricting as they should be.

[SineSwiper]

Oh, and I just lost two NPCs that I fought hard to keep around. Siegmeyer has absolute shit for HP, so even though I killed 3 out of the 4 Chaos Eaters, he still ends up with less than half life. For some reason, this qualifies for him speaking something and dying.

And my Solaire went crazy from the Sunlight Maggot, even though I fought hard to get the Chaos shortcut, kill the bugs, and get the Maggot from him before crossing Lost Izalith. I guess talking to him in Demon Ruins counts as "sealing his fate" as it were.

It sucks that there all of this wasted potential with some of these NPCs and their stories. Why does it drive him crazy? We don't know. Why does he search for it? Barely explained. The story is so light in this game in general.

[Shellie]

I love how he goes from "This game is shit.." to "I'm a pro at this game!"

It pisses me off just watching it. I can't stand it.

[SineSwiper]

I love how he goes from "This game is shit.." to "I'm a pro at this game!"

It pisses me off just watching it. I can't stand it.

Again, I have nothing else better to play. Cold pizza is better than nothing at all.

[bovine]

After purchasing the Artorias of the Abyss DLC for Dark Souls, I tried my darnedest to get my main to the spot in the game where you can access it, but hit a dead end in my NG++ play through when I hit the 4 Kings. I tried for about a month to find a partner, and some fruitless solo attempts too. I figured that this was it for my main, so I started up an alt just to experience the DLC. Just when I opened up the path to the new area, I IMMEDIATELY realized that I am an idiot, and the path to the new area opens RIGHT before the 4 Kings. So I rolled my main to the new area, and now I'm finally in Oolacile.

[Eric]

Bovine, you may go into full fap mode now.

Dark Souls II will be arriving in North America on March 11, 2014, with a European release date three days later on March 14.

[Oracle]

Worst. Game. Ever.

[SineSwiper]

Yes. And this is a record of my terrible experience with that damn game.

[Manshoon]

I think you guys might enjoy this, it's an LP montage of Dark Souls condensed down to an hour. He sums up a lot of people's frustrations with the game and is pretty funny to listen to.

Part 1

Part 2

[Oracle]

I actually love the game. just trying to bait bovine and sine a bit

[Oracle]

Sooo... Prepare to Die edition was up on steam for $6.99. Ended up snagging it, along with Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition.

[bovine]

Dark Souls is $5 on Xbox Live today. This is probably way too late to convince anyone to buy it, but a friend of mine has been asking me to live stream some dark souls sessions and here it is (was) if you are at all interested on learning how not to be a scrub at dark souls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_NqCr6V ... e=youtu.be

(I am a scrub at dark souls)