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

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..

got the switch version over the weekend, because already owning it on pc, ps3, 360 and ps4 was not enough already, and decided to try something a bit different by playing as a primarily magic-based character than a salt-of-the-earth melee-weapons-only lunkhead

and FUCK it is so much easier to be a magic-wielder, wtf have i been doing playing as melee characters for the last eight years ;_;

the intricate, intimate call-and-response of hand-to-hand combat? the delicate balance of finding just the right weapon to pair with just the right set of armour so i maintain some agility? the adrenalin rush of a perfectly-executed shield parry, followed by a killing blow driven clear though an opponent's torso?

all this time i could have been slouching in my pyjamas thirty feet away casually dropping enemies with a barrage of soul arrows?

FUCK

double dipped on the Switch version, as I never got very far on the PS3 version.

I just about got parry/riposte mechanic in Demon's Souls, never clicked in DS1.

Is putting in the effort to learn the timing useful, seeing as I have a Cleric/tank build that uses hammers/morningstars etc?

I haven't even got to them yet, but F**K a Basilisk.

parry / riposte is def worth learning imo, if only because it makes you feel like a total badass

basilisks are fucking bastards, worst enemies in any souls game by far

Haha bg. I've still never done a magic playthrough, it just doesn't seem as fun to me. And if you do want to do any pvp, you have to be tricky since other players won't just stand still for it (like, parry into magic blast!).

it's definitely not as fun so far - i do know the game really well by now but it's definitely less challenging when you don't have to go toe-to-toe with every enemy

taurus demon, gaping dragon, and moonlight butterfly were all dispatched on first try with minimal need for estus flasks and plenty of soul arrows still in my artillery - i killed the capra demon in three hits ffs

Switch version arrived

I don't think I actually could've anticipated how difficult this game actually is. I died seven times before killing the big demon. Then I got flown to a new place, opened some chests, and was promptly killed by two skeletons

Having gotten to a "quite good" level of skill on Dead Cells, I think I'm a little frustrated with how clunky these controls are in comparison. Should I be targeting more? Not trying to parry-riposte? I am playing a female warrior named after my dog

lock on - shield up - get behind - backstab

getting pwned by the skeletons is how the game tells you to go in a different direction from firelink shrine fyi

Yeah I watched a play through (without commentary) and saw the dude see skeletons and nope turn around run away

I'm curious how the controls feel on Switch. A friend of mine got it, we're gonna have a Dark Souls date soon. :)

Oddly enough the skeletons outside of Firelink (leading up) are some of the harder enemies to parry, just because they have a lot of different attack speeds and some of them have loooong delays.

So far, the controls are tedious when you are playing it handheld, but better when detached and mounted to the charging grip

xpost lock on is key ... except when it isn't!

getting pwned by the skeletons is how the game tells you to go in a different direction from firelink shrine fyi

― i’ll hufflepuff i’ll blow you away (bizarro gazzara), Monday, October 22, 2018 12:37 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it only took me three or so times getting wasted by skeletons to figure out where else to go! game's good

it's worth having a proper look round Firelink too, mad swag to be had if you search, and search again when you open new bits up...

my magic runthru continues to be a revelation, albeit a pretty dull one

blasted through queelag on my first attempt, took down ceaseless discharge, and now i'm bopping through demon's ruins killing everything in my path and hoovering up mad souls, which i'm ploughing into the intelligence stat to make myself even more of a weapon of mass destruction on legs

kinda feels like cheating tbh

magic is definitely a bit broken, especially when you consider that with the magic weapon upgrades you'll also be doing as much or more melee damage as any other build. the "optimum" build up to ~100 is probably just hitting the soft caps on intelligence and endurance.

Yeah, I didn't really know about magic until I saw some youtube run-through that was presented as OMG, blah blah DESTROYS Dark Souls with barely anything. And this person started out with magic and just took things out with ranged attacks. And I thought ... I can do that? As a "warrior" with stats weighted in strength and dexterity, I guess, no, I can't. (And in fact occasionally come across swag or help which is intended for another class.) Next time I play, maybe!

Another tip I found pretty early on was not to be afraid of suicide runs, esp. if you don't have much to lose, souls-wise. Good way to get some good stuff, minus the headache. If it's cool to run by enemies without fighting them, it's cool to run by to grab something, too.

Back in town after a trip, looking forward to diving into the Depths today!

i know i've been trained to expect a certain type of challenge after probably a couple of hundred hours playing souls games, but it just seems so weird that the developers built this exquisitely-tuned mechanic for melee combat, where every decision about armour and weaponry and stats makes a tangible difference to how your character feels, but then they also gave you the option to chill out and call in an airstrike over and over and over until your enemy is dead

maybe i'm setting myself up for getting crushed when i make it further in, i dunno

it's kinda cool to see dark souls from a different perspective i guess but it also kinda strips away everything i actually enjoy about dark souls

josh otm, suicide runs are u&k, do them as often as possible imo, even if it's just to get a sense of a new space before you start exploring it properly

I think I'm going to use a walkthrough for the first hour or so. I didn't know how to level-up, what to level-up, what "humanity" was for, or anything. I went out on to this lake place and kept getting scissored-to-death by these ghost ladies and hauling my paltry 520 souls back along the dock a few steps at a time. I don't know what I'm doing so I'm starting again with a guide in hand.

I found a really good spoiler-free tutorial I can post. Give me a second.

Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_YBDIhXgbw&index=1&list=PLnDa47i6qBvl8_qDUuAU2KWmZC9691LGd

You can obviously skip past the overeager intros, but he does a good job teaching the basics without giving anything away (like many walkthroughs).

Huh, weird. Lemme try again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_YBDIhXgbw&list=PLnDa47i6qBvl8_qDUuAU2KWmZC9691LGd&index=1

I don't get it. Well, they're all here: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnDa47i6qBvl8_qDUuAU2KWmZC9691LGd