DARK SOULS: if you need me i'll be in an induced coma so mvrch comes tomorrow

don't upgrade armour ever, maybe upgrade your most used shields when you have the titanite or souls to spare.

if levels are getting expensive it's because you're overleveled, keep playing and souls drops will increase along, typical rpg fare

What does over-leveled mean? (I've never really played RPGs beyond D&D in 5th grade or I guess Zelda in middle school.) Does it mean I boosted my stats too high for this stage of the game and the game is slowing me down?

Yeah pretty much. There's a natural level range you would be at for each area if you kept progressing without stopping to grind. So if you do grind for levels, they keep costing more but the enemies in the area are still giving you a low amount of souls.

Game is so dark that even at a pretty high brightness setting I'm missing stuff and enemies.

tbf you did mention failing to see the dragon in the brightness test.

the game is dark, sure, but maybe your PS4 rgb output levels are misconfigured. next time you play on the ps4 video settings toggle between pc and video levels (or whatever ps4 calls them) and try the brightness test again.

if you still don't see the dragon, then check your display settings or something

Still didn't see the dragon, don't feel like messing with the TV settings for the sake of the game. It's bright enough for now, at least.

Gah, stupid capra demon. I guess I'm getting better, but it really seems like a matter of being as fast as possible to get away from it, in time to hide, kill the dogs (it's so hard to tell if they're dead or not) and restore health. I wonder if I might be better off going to the forest first. Or if I'm supposed to?

I did find a shortcut back to firelink shrink, at least, where I can get my 10 estus. That's gotta come in handy.

capra demon iirc, kill the dogs asap, then just run up the stairs, wait for him to follow you, fall off ledge, hit him once or twice, rinse, repeat 4ever.

There's also a pretty great trick that, in fairness, I won't mention until after you beat them.

I like how this game has a way of telling you it's time for a break. In today's case I was fighting the capra demon, finally figured out how to get past it and up the stairs, finally figured out how to spin the camera fast enough to kill the dogs, then managed to break the demon down to maybe a quarter health before the target lock got me stuck in a weird place. So I figured, OK, I think I've got this. Start again at firelink, rush up there, restore myself with one of my 9 estus, pop into the boss area and immediately up the stairs ... then flail wildly before I realized I somehow unequipped a sword and was just using my fists.

Capra demon defeated! There was this extra little bit of stairway I didn't see, and once I realized I could make my way those extra few feet it got a lot easier. Dropped a key that opened the door to a dungeon or something, which I unlocked, but instinct told me not to go there yet. Instead I made my way back to Andre, made sure my equipment was good, then started exploring the garden/forest/basin. Those plant monsters seem ok, and there are theses two headed snakes that sort of hide on trees that don't seem to do much but die, yet, but those stone knights that put a glowing ring around you ... those I need to figure out. One I was able to kill before it trapped me. Is that the only strategy, take them out before they trap you?

That's ideal, but if they do trap you (it's the Tranquil Walk of Peace miracle, which you can get later), just don't try to roll, stand your ground and block/attack.

Here's the trick I mentioned, aren't you glad you didn't do this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0GJrBO1DLI

(I tried it once, didn't bother with aiming at a specific spot, just started throwing bombs over the wall and managed to take out a dog before entering)

That's bullshit, but I respect that the game allows for such cheesing. I mean if you can figure it out yourself, more power to you! I want to say I came across something similar involving dung bombs or whatever, but it sounded silly so I figured I would just do it old school. I did light my sword on fire once, because the undead merchant by there was selling them, which I took as a hint, but I quickly realized it mattered less what weapon I was using and more how fast I could get to those stairs. And, again, all the way to the end of the stairs. After the dogs are dead the demon itself isn't so bad.

Magic butterfly was the precise opposite of the capra demon: slow moving, easy to dodge attack, and then ... it just moves in close to you and holds still for several seconds while you whack it over the head. Pretty, though, if surreal as a boss. I assume there is more in darkroom garden/basin. I feel like there are at least a couple of paths I haven't taken that are littered with those stone knights and more tree people.

I've more or less settled on the katana and the claymore as my two weapons, the first for speed and the second for strength. If I up my strength stat, does that make the sword easier to swing without tiring myself out, or is that endurance?

Endurance

(butterfly also has the best theme!)

Are my instincts right that what a vendor is selling might either hint at ways to defeat an upcoming enemy or deal with upcoming hazards?

Um, you may have to be more specific? You don't have to worry about spoilers for our sake.

Like, near the capra demon was the undead vendor who was selling, among other things, lots of bloodroot moss or something (which gets dropped a lot in the darkroot garden) and also some flaming sword wipe. Was the flaming sword indeed a shortcut to taking down the capra demon, just as the gold pine helped with the taurus demon that came more or less right after you get it?

Oh sure, more damage always helps, but is not necessary.

But if you're getting dropped or sold items that protect against poison or toxin, those might come in handy nearby.

Josh, out of interest, are you enjoying playing it?

Yeah! I mean, it's a bit of a slog, and it's pretty relentlessly grim and humorless, but it's creative, and challenging, and as much as I dislike repeating stretches of it over and over again, so far nothing has stumped me for some inordinate amount of time. I had heard stories of people giving up after reaching the Taurus demon, or the Capra demon, so the fact that I got both of them relatively easily was encouraging. I will say, I literally have no idea how anyone can play this without looking things up occasionally. It's so obscure and impenetrable. I guess that is why people often play it more than once. Even though you know what happens and when it happens, there are so many different ways to play at the game. Kind like Hollow Knight in that way. I was very satisfied completing that game, even though my level of pollution was well under 100% percent. So if I ever wanted to go back and face more challenges, it's there. But, for example, I will most likely play my entire game without using Humanity. Maybe to Kindle a fire, but that's it. maybe I will look into it more if I ever play it again. But of course I will also have Dark Souls 2 and 3, and Bloodborne, to deal with at some point.

Heh, level of pollution was meant to be completion, though pollution is weirdly apt for Hollow Knight.

But here's a good example of what I meant by its impenetrability, or the need to look things up. Fake walls! How in the world would you even know to look for fake walls unless you were told in advance? And then, what are you supposed to do, walk around the entire game hitting walls? Or scaling, who in the world would even know how that works without being told?

How in the world would you even know to look for fake walls unless you were told in advance?

Ah, this is where the online message system shines.

Hollow Knight has fake walls too btw!

For sure! But I think because it's more or less 2D they are easier to bump into and discover. The 3D environments of Dark Souls make discovery more of a challenge, imo, because there is another dimension! But yeah, online message system - I get it, but someone had to find it first to tell people! How did they manage to do that?

> it's pretty relentlessly grim and humorless

no way, souls games are littered with humour, from enemy animations, to item descrptions, to the way that when you are lured to a shiny and fall into a cartoon death pit trap, when you come back and do get the shiny it's probably a dung pie or something

btw as if it weren't obvious already I love these games in no small part because of their intentional obscurantism and elliptical storytelling. I must because boy do i suck at actually playing them

Ha, it does often remind me of Dragon's Lair, which was of course silly. I guess I just meant there are very few opportunities to just relax and take it all in. Some of the bosses so far, I barely know what they looked like, I was so busy running and fighting and freaking out.

The first Dark Souls in particular always reminded me of Cadaver
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKWCLVUtL3g

but someone had to find it first to tell people! How did they manage to do that?

Exploration? I'd rather have a game that's a big box full of mystery and secrets than one that holds your hand so that you don't miss any content.

Oh, I totally agree. But it's one thing to explore and find hidden treasures and stuff in remote places. But if you don't know there are even illusory walls to search for, then how would even exploration discover them, unless you randomly went around hitting every single surface for no reason? Is there at least one conspicuous illusory wall in the game that might send you back to search for others on future playthroughs? Has the DS community dedicated some amount of time over the past several years literally hitting everything in the game to see what happens? I mean, killing the first vendor gets you the katana. I can totally see how in a kill-fest game someone would eventually kill that vendor and discover that. This is a game about killing things and discovering things. But hitting walls? The would be like, I dunno, needing to perform a specific gesture to a specific tree monster at a specific time and place to get it to sing you a song. How would someone know to do that, and why would they even try in the first place?

I don't know how conspicuous it was, but pretty sure I found my first one by accident.

Smacking things in your environment for secrets is an age old video game trope and many miles from "needing to perform a specific gesture to a specific tree monster at a specific time".

I guess? But like I said, it seems particularly challenging in a 3D environment. It's one thing to break every barrel, it's another to hit everything. Then again, the more I think about it the more I figure, given all the permutations of characters and abilities and levels and order of completion, it's probably safe to assume that, yeah, after several years, someone has hit everything that can be hit in this game!

Flashing back to the original Zelda, and iirc there were a couple of similar discoveries. Like, how in the world did someone figure out how to do the thing with the thing? Even back then in 7th grade or whenever I assumed it was a gentle ruse to convince people to buy the cheat guide.

Gah, not quite sure how to kill the Hydra, or even if I have to. I grabbed the treasure items that were sitting in the lake before it, and managed to chop the head off of one of them, but I'm not quite sure what to do after that. In fact, I'm not even quite sure how I chopped the head off that first Hydra. Kind of a weird fight. No music, not even sure if it is a boss!

Hydra down! (Wasn't too bad once I figured out how to get past the spitting attack with little damage.) By now I've accumulated so much weird stuff I should probably take a few minutes to explore my inventory. If only tree monster moss was a unit of currency ...

Definitely read the descriptions of everything, often that's the only place the game tells you if an item does something useful. And who knows, maybe all that moss will come in handy soon...

I have so much moss. I bought some from the undead vendor when I could, along with a bunch of stuff, and then I went to darkroom garden and, thanks to those stone giants, got my ass kicked repeatedly. Which means I killed a lot of those trees (and they killed me a lot, too). And they always drop the moss, which made me feel silly for buying it.

If I'm playing offline, does humanity do much of anything for me? Besides allow me to kindle fires?

Having lots of humanity increases how much cool stuff enemies drop when you kill them, but otherwise it's only used for kindling AFAIK. I think being human gives you more health maybe? but I never stayed human long enough to find out.

I'll echo those above in saying that playing online is v recommended. You wont' get invaded unless you reverse the hollowing. I only got invaded once when I was a little further on than you, and they helped me do one of the upcoming bosses (although we still DIED). And seeing other people's messages is invaluable, I don't know how I'd have completed it without them (actually I do know, I'd use a walkthrough even more than I otherwise did.)

I have not subscribed to any PlayStation monthly fee thing and don't plan to, so online is not even an option.

I think that's fine actually. Sure, at this point I've probably spent more time on Dark Souls pvp than anyone here (mostly in DS3), but I stayed hollow for my whole first DS playthrough. Except to try and summon help for a certain boss, but it's more satisfying to do it solo anyway.

You're clearly not interested in pvp, and you have ILX instead of the messages, so you're not missing out on much besides helping other players.

in addition to the increased drop rates, chaos weapons scale with humanity up to a maximum of 10. it also increases curse resistance and maybe defense in general? not sure

having humanity is not necessarily the same as being human, i think you can remain hollow and the bonuses apply regardless

having humanity is not necessarily the same as being human

really makes you think

don't think I can upgrade my current +5 weapons until I get some embers. which are ... dropped? no idea. I do have a magic ember I think, but it looked like upgrading my weapons with that make them do less damage unless I had a magic build. which I don't.

when I get back in town I'm going to try and kill Havel next. found his house near the Hydra. then ... back to lower undead burg?

There’s one particular false-wall secret in DS1 that I have no idea how anyone could discover by themselves without reading spoilers. It’s kind of a big thing back there, too!

Havel turned out to be pretty easy. I mean, I died a lot, but that's mostly my fault, because I was either impatient or experimenting with different approaches, sort of encouraged by the bonfire being so close and having spent most of my souls down before I tried. I thought I didn't have any place left to go but Lower Undead, but I still went back to Firelink first (where, being sloppy, I fell off a bridge roadrunner/coyote style on the way and lost, afaict, almost 7000 souls somewhere down ... somewhere) and a NPC hinted there was more to explore below me (and also talked about a bunch of shit that meant nothing to me). So I decided to give the opening graveyard skeletons another shot, and go figure, experience plus upgrades made them a lot easier! Neat game.

have you done the depths yet?

"plumbed" shurely

I don't think so? Oh, wait, that's what I meant by Lower Undead Burg, that door at the bottom of the tower, past a couple of dogs and zombie ninjas. That must be the Depths, right? I poked my head in there and saw trouble, so postponed it until after Darkroot Basin and Garden, where I *think* I did everything I need to do. Though I did see a gold crystal monster thing in the lake in the distance, but given how hard it is to move in the water and how easy it was to sink and fall when I was fighting the hydra I figured it was optional and/or a bad idea. Likewise I climbed a giant ladder up a cliff in Darkroot to a bridge to nowhere, so figured if it wasn't a trap it was some place to be explored later. Oh, and I did find the Valley of the Drakes, but that seems like a bad idea, given how easy one of them killed me a few times before I gave up. So I think my plan, since I'm currently saved at Firelink, is to farm a few souls and stock up on weapons and stuff from the Undead Merchant, then go through the sewer shortcut to the Depths. Where I will find ... likely certain death, at least a few times.

I also assume the enemies get ... tougher? Because level upgrades are starting to cost around 8000 souls or so, which is a lot! I'm still dividing souls between those 4 key stats, though I am tempted to focus on strength so that I can wield that giant sword from the graveyard with one hand. I experimented it two-handed on Havel, and it packs a punch, but it's sooooo sloooooow.

You don't have to worry about it for quite awhile, but that gold crystal golem is key to accessing a huge part of the game (what used to be the DLC, so it's meant for after you've finished nearly everything else). Their dlc access points are often needlessly obscure...if you're not trying to run through the whole game yourself looking for a new element, it basically requires looking it up online, which I think is the part of the point.

Depths is a good place to go.

Switch version arrived. I think this game is fun

I will probably only play in like intermittent one hour increments..